Whispers In The Wind
by Lozzarooni
Summary: Parker has an obsession with the Old West and has started having dreams from another life. Eliot's been duped into taking her on a road trip, but he has a secret, he shares her obsession too. To solve a mystery they must put the ghosts of the past to rest and deal with their attraction for each other. Please see inside for a more detailed summary. AUish and OC. Rated M/MA
1. ANs Disclaimer - UPDATED 27 APRIL

**Authors Notes - Updated 27 April 2013  
**

Firstly a warm welcome to all who are reading this.

The little blurb thingy on here didn't have enough room for me to write a complete synopsis. So here goes:

**Romance/Paranormal/Mystery/****Slight AU post The Studio Job  
**

**Parker/Eliot Spencer Centric  
**

**Original Characters**

Parker's developed an obsession with the 'Old West' and decides that she wants to visit the old ghost towns she's been reading about in a book. The night before her trip she starts to dream about another life in another time, but the dreams are so vivid that's worried that there's something wrong with her.

Eliot Spencer has been duped into accompanying her on the trip, but he has a surprise in store for the thief. He knows about an old town called Angel Creek and decides that Parker and he would have a more authentic experience if take their trip there, but it means having to reveal some of his well kept secrets.

Angel Creek has secrets of its very own, and unbeknownst to Parker and Eliot, they are the keys to revealing it.

With a growing attraction to each other that neither of them had counted on they have put the ghosts of the past to rest and solve a 130 year old mystery all the while deciding whether to sail the uncharted waters of being more than just friends.

**Rating: -** As of the 27th of April, the rating on this story has changed from an T to an M. This is because some chapters contain scenes of a sexual nature that might be unsuitable for younger readers. You will however, not find derogatory terms within these scenes as I feel that there is a time and a place for these and unless I'm writing Erotica then there is no real need for them in a romance story, however the scenes are moderately graphic and I will warn readers if the chapter does contain such scenes.

* * *

This is the first fan fiction I've written in ten years so I'm a little shaky about the reception that this is going to get. I love constructive criticism, so if you find anything wrong grammatically or otherwise or if you have a suggestion, please feel free to leave me feedback. Likewise if you like what you read, please feel free to leave me a review.

There have been a few things that have inspired me to write again, but the biggest inspiration have been the writings of **Ultra aka Ultrawoman**. If you've not read anything of hers, please go and check out her awesome stories and not just the Leverage ones and leave her reviews too. XD There has also been some awesome Eliot/Parker vids on YouTube that have inspired me on my way and I've got a bit of a playlist going on which I listen to not just when I'm writing so I've got quite a bit planned out for later on.

**Disclaimer**

The events depicted in this fan fiction are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental. I own nothing but my words, my original characters and the ghosts of the past. All characters from Leverage are owned by their respective creators - John Rogers and Chris Downey.

In chapter 3, there is reference to a couple of real places in OK.

Angel Creek, although fictitious is very loosely based on two or three actual former Old West and Frontier towns. Doakes, OK now serves as a museum, but actually existed long before the OK Land Rush of 1890, being established well before the Civil War as an outpost. A fort was later added nearby. The layout of the town in my head is a cross between the town of Colorado Springs but more or less looks like that of Dodge City in appearance and parts of the Whittingstall Ranch is based on what images I've seen of the Tunstall Ranch in old pictures of Lincoln County.

This is a Non-For-Profit fan fiction and I'm not receiving any monies for this work.


	2. Prologue

**Whispers in the Wind**

**Prologue**

_The large ranch house of Mr. Zachariah Whittingstall was filled with at least thirty of his friends and business associates, their wives and their daughters; some of whom had traveled from Kansas and Texas. His own daughter seventeen-year old Emmeline, had played her part and agreed to be dressed as a well bred lady should be, in a pretty dress of cornflower blue. A simply uncomfortable affair, with a corset tied so tightly that she could hardly breathe. These parties were held every two to three months at the ranch house and at first, she had been excited about them and loved being dressed up like a society lady in fine dresses of silk and lace imported from New York, but she soon grew tiresome of seeing the same faces and not being able to do the things that she normally did, like tending and riding the horses and the other little things that her father let her do away from the prying eyes of the townspeople of Angel Creek. _

_Although Emmeline hated her father's soirees, she had made the usual pleasantries with the gentlemen who all seemed to leer at her lithe body and ample bosom. There was no doubt that given the right situation and a fair amount of whisky that one or more of the gentlemen them would turn absolutely beastly and try to have his way with her. As the thought always hung in the forefront of her mind, she remained perfectly darling to their fragile looking wives and she made merry with the young girls, who quite clearly talked behind her back in hushed whispers simply because her father owned half of the town and had a liking to drinking too much whisky and a reputation for being too ruthless in business. Also, the younger gentlemen who were often dragged to these parties seemed to prefer filling her dance card than theirs. _

_Emmeline had always suspected the purpose of these parties were to either find someone who was willing to take her off her father's hands – seventeen was quite old to unmarried around these parts and she often wondered if she would be considered an old maid - and also for the visiting wives to try marrying off their daughters to her father. Money and status was all these people seemed to care about and feelings like love be damned. The thought of being married to any one of these men made her heart sink, she would even go as far as saying that it disgusted her. Emmeline wanted to marry for love, wanted to marry a man who worshiped her as much she would worship him; and while she knew that it was common for woman to marry a man and for love to grow, she didn't want to be one of the women who that didn't happen to. _

_The party had begun to grow tiresome to her and Emmeline had made her escape a short while ago, without making any excuses. As luck would have it, her good manners had led her towards the lounge door and her opportunity came when one of the older females had fainted from the heat. She assumed that the woman was what her father would have called a Yankee, having never been acclimatised to the heat that lingered all year around in the Mid-Southern states. Gathering the skirts of her dress and kicking her shoes into a corner where they would be easy to retrieve on her return, she slipped through the swing door, through the kitchen and out into the warm evening air._

_A gentle breeze tickled her bare legs as she moved away from the manor house and into the ranch's cultivated gardens. As the sounds of laughter, which had resumed shortly after her vacating the house, and the jaunty music from the small band of fiddlers and the player piano became distant, Emmeline found herself meandering through the hedges towards a small pond in the very center of the garden, where she was assaulted with the aroma of a hundred flowers; freesia, sweet pea, roses and lavender that all mingled into a sweet smelling perfume that she wished she could bottle and carry with her at all times. The smell reminded her so very much of her mother, Grace, who was the one who tended the gardens and planted all of the flowers. _

_They had been her pride and joy and together Emmeline and her mother had spent many a day basking outside in the sunshine; she would read books and do her further learning as she listened to her mother hum a cheerful tune. Oh how she missed those days. They seemed such a long time ago, although in reality they had only ended two years ago when her mother succumbed to consumption and died in the spring, before she had the chance to start tending the flower beds in preparation for the summer. She took a seat on the very edge of the walled pond, for it was always here that she made her escape whenever she felt the need to just be alone, away from all the hubbub. _

_Her father never came here; it pained him to be in the place that reminded him so much of her mother. Although his recent behaviour of lifting the skirts of the saloon girls, throwing these week long parties and drinking himself into such a stupor had earned a him a poor reputation, Emmeline knew that her father had loved her mother very much and still did so. After her death, in a fit of drunken ire, he tried to destroy the gardens with fire, he was however unsuccessful in his attempt as it had rained shortly before he stumbled off the porch with a kerosene lamp and the fire never took. She had been thankful for that, seeing it as a sign from God, otherwise she would have been unable to forgive him for taking away the last thing that tied her to her beloved mother. It was of course no secret that she came here, her father chose to overlook it and if she was needed, then he sent one of the housemaids, usually her favourite, a freed slave by the name of Betsy, to find her. The summer after her mother's death, she began tending the gardens herself as best as she could, but in the end, Emile; one of the workers on her father's ranch took over. _

_Emmeline stared at her reflection in the clear cool water of the pond, watching it ripple with the now cooling evening breeze and wondered if she would ever find the happiness that her mother had found with her father. There's was a lucky marriage, one that united two strangers, who immediately fell in love with each other and found long lasting happiness. Until death do us part. Lost in her own thoughts Emmeline frowned when she realised that the sun was starting to set, turning the sky into a magically multi-coloured cornucopia of pinks, purples and oranges. A small sigh escaped her lips as she stood up, knowing that now was the time to return to the house and the unruly shenanigans that were bound to be in full swing. She would have to endure for just a few more hours until she could go to her room, lock the door and try to sleep. Smoothing the creases out of her dress, she took one final look around her and started walking slowly back to the house with an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. _

_It wasn't until she was half way back through the gardens that she realised that she was not alone. Emmeline half suspected that one of the gentlemen from the party and stumbled outside and lost his way, so she didn't particularly take much heed and carried on. It was only when she past a row of tall hedges that she grew worried. The air suddenly seemed to grow thicker and stiller at the same time and the noise from the cicadas and the birds who were saying goodbye to the sun ceased and the only sounds that could be heard where the strains of music from the house and the sound of her heartbeat, which pounded in her chest. Without warning, she was yanked to the right and through the gap in the hedgerow into a secluded area that she hadn't known had existed. _

_Her eyes widened with fright as a black-gloved hand suddenly clamped over her mouth and she was pulled backwards into the hardened body of a man. Emmeline struggled, but he brought his other arm over her stomach and around her and pinned her petite body to his. Her constant squirming brought a bubble of laughter to the man's chest, which reverberated through her own body and sent tingles all the way down to her toes. Despite the distinctive smells around her, she could now smell him too. He smelt of the wind, of the sun and of the wild. There was a hint of something spicy there too, cologne maybe, and definitely whisky. Suddenly she grew afraid as the cold realisation of what could happen hit her._

'_Keep squirmin' like that darlin' an' I might start to like it,' his voice was gruff but honey coated and in a strange way, gentle. 'I'm not gonna hurt ya, I just need you to pass on a message for me'._

_Emmeline refused to comply, although her fear did strangely subside at his promise, but still she wriggled trying to break free from his embrace. He didn't try to restrain her any more, just let her carry on trying to break free from his embrace, his mouth nestled in the curls on her shoulder, so close to her ear that she thought she could hear him chuckling to himself and then she knew why and she stopped suddenly, shocked. Some thing had changed and she could feel it against her back, hot and rigid with a heat that penetrated through her thin dress and burned against her skin. _

'_I told ya I'd start to like it,' he breathed against her neck, a hint of a laugh in his drawl. 'Now, I wan' ya to nod your head if ya understand me.' _

_Emmeline nodded, quite vigorously, knowing that doing what he told her would be the best thing to do in the current situation._

'_Can ya tell your daddy that he's got some unfinished business with Black and to come to the place that he knows at high noon tomorra?' _

_Yes, she told him with a nod, she would tell her daddy and then she was sure her daddy would kill him for man-handling his daughter like this. _

'_Good, now I'm gonna let ya go,' the man said gruffly._

_With that, he released his grip from around her waist and pushed her forward back towards the gap she was dragged through. His other hand still clamped around her mouth like a vice as he walked behind her. She was half through the gap when his free hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back sharply spun her in one swift move to face him. _

_Her hazel-coloured eyes landed immediately on his face which though half covered with a black kerchief looked tan and sun-weathered. His eyes were a startling colour of blue that looked as though they were the oceans themselves with laughter lines fanned out from the corners. His hair was pulled back and tied with a piece of leather and he wore a black Stetson hat, pulled low over his face, this was meant to hide the top half of his face, she was sure, but in the setting sunlight and the angle at which she was looking up at him meant that it only served to keep the light at bay from the top of his head. She quickly took in the rest of his appearance. He was dressed completely in black. A black shirt with loose ties hugged his muscular chest; the cotton fabric strained against the bulkiness of his arms, was tucked in to a snug pair of black pants which clung to his lean legs the in turn were tucked into a pair of black low-heeled and silver spurred leather boots that stopped at his calves. _

_If he hadn't have kidnapped her, Emmeline would have been sure to have found his look alluring. She had heard of men dressed like this, gun slingers she believed they were called. There were often pictures of them on wanted posters that she'd seen around the town, looking mean and dangerous. _

_Before she had chance to make a run for it back through the bushes and back up to the house, the black-clad man pulled her close to him, her breasts squashing up against his chest as he pinned her hands around her back with his other arm before she had time to struggle free. With a deft movement that was quicker than Emmeline could have ever believed, he had removed his hand from her mouth, pulled down the kerchief and had crushed his mouth to her own. _

_This was very wrong, she knew it was and so she struggled against him once more trying to break the kiss. It was her body that betrayed her first, as it surrendered to his embrace, and he released his grip on her arms. They hung there limply for a few seconds as her lips betrayed her and they moved in time with his. Her body melted into his as the kiss deepened and her arms moved from her sides so that she could grab on to him, if only to keep herself from falling down._

_She had never had a real kiss in all of her seventeen years, a chaste kiss happened once with a boy when she was twelve, but that was wet and horrid and not something that she ever had the desire to want to try again. This kiss was something else. It made her wanton with desire and made her knees go weak. This was the kiss of the great lovers, Romeo and Juliet, of Tristan and Isolde. It caused an unknown feeling to bubble inside of her, it was raw, unbridled and it made her head spin. She didn't want to end, but she knew it would have to eventually._

_After what seemed an eternity, the man in black broke the kiss and while her eyes were still closed, pulled the kerchief back over his face. When she opened her eyes seconds later, he had vanished and she was left in the clearing, alone, with a heaving bosom and the inability to walk. She was sure that somewhere in the distance she could hear that now familiar chuckle of the man in black. Her lips tingled fiercely and the soft skin around her mouth was burning slightly from the stubbly facial hair that he had hidden from her initial view. _

_In a daze, she slipped back through the gap in the hedgerow and for the second time that night, she smoothed down the creases of the cornflower blue dress, not noticing the small tears in the sleeves, patted her curls back into place and quickly hurried back through the gardens towards the manor house, hoping to disguise her flushed appearance as one of over exertion.  
_

_The sky was growing ever darker by the time Emmeline slipped back inside to the party and Betsy gave her a look that told her that she had been missed. She frowned and hurried into the receiving room to find her father, pausing briefly to touch her fingers to her still tingling lips..._


	3. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Parker woke up with a start and instinctively placed her fingers on her lips. To her surprise her lips did feel tingly, though not the same as how they'd felt in her dream. And what a dream it was. It was so real that she could still smell the slight aroma of wild flowers and freesia, even though she was on the over-stuffed couch in the living area just off Nate's apartment, and still in the curled up position that she had been in the previous night. The others had obviously left her there lost in her slumber, although someone, most likely Hardison, had thrown a blanket over her to keep the cold at bay. Next to her, was the book that she had been reading before she'd fallen asleep. She'd stolen 'Ghost Towns of the Old West' from a bookstore down the street, not that she'd told anyone she had done. It was just one of many that she had taken over the past few weeks. Parker had a new obsession and nothing, not even cracking a safe could dampen the fire as it raged inside of her.

Swinging her legs down onto the cool wooden floor, Parker, still disorientated from her dream, stood and padded towards the kitchen. Eliot may have banned her indefinitely but he wasn't here now and she really needed to get a drink. Opening the refrigerator, Parker pulled out a six pack of cola and hopped onto the counter top, closing the door shut with the tips of her toes. She popped the ring pull on one of the cans and chugged it down in one go, the sugary bubbles biting into her tongue and cold liquid refreshing her thirst. The caffeine started to work her way into her blood stream and she began to feel human again.

Parker was definitely not a morning person and most mornings the sight of her sitting on the counter top drinking nothing but cola first thing in the morning was usually the first port of complaint from everyone. This made her grouchy. _'Cola's not a morning drink,_' they'd often told her, yet they were the ones that went straight for the coffee pot and drank two or three mugfuls before they looked awake enough for any sort of meeting of minds to start. No, Parker definitely liked cola for breakfast; it did the job fast and the sugar set her up for the day.

While she sipped on her second can, she cast her mind back over the ending of her dream. The image of those blue eyes lingered in her head, the way they'd looked deep into her soul before he'd kissed her was something she'd never experienced in her life, Hardison's eyes never looked like that when he looked at her ever. Oh and that kiss, just thinking about it made her toes curl and stirred up a longing deep inside her belly. That mouth as it crushed against her own was the single most erotic thing ever, even if it was just a dream.

_Clearly_, the thief mused to herself, _I've watched too many movies about gunslingers._

Parker's new found obsession with gunslingers and the whole of the Old West had occurred while they were down in Tennessee helping Kaye Lynn Gold deal with a crooked record producer. Parker didn't know if it was Hardison's fault or not that she'd become a nightmare to be around - he had been the one watching something about the Old West on the television in his hotel room; probably because there wasn't much of anything else available to watch other than porn (although she did suspect that Hardison had been on the pay-per-view) - and Parker, had quickly become engrossed. It was if someone had switched a light bulb on above her head and told her that she had a connection to the era and she'd found herself comparing the modern day cowboys and the ones from back in the day. She had spent every free moment between her roles in the case and most of the time since watching western movie after western movie, old episodes of Rawhide, Little House on the Prairie and The Magnificent Seven.

It wasn't just the movies Parker found herself watching though; she read every book that she could get her hands on, from biographical books about Jesse James and Wyatt Earp to cheesy bodice ripper romances. Although she wasn't especially a girly girl - she was as far removed from being one of those as possible - the thought of an illicit romance between a well-to-do lady and lone gunman gave her the warm and fuzzies and sparked something up deep inside of her that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She was fascinated with it all. The others, her make-shift family, put it her new found love of all things 'Old West', down to another one of her quirks and expected the novelty to wear off, but it never did. They had soon tired of her constantly asking questions about infamous outlaws and events and also of her looking slightly doe-eyed during many a movie, so they directed her towards Eliot. As someone who'd grown up in the Mid-West around all the lore, they reasoned that he was probably the best one to speak to about it all.

Eliot hadn't been particularly happy at this as the young blonde thief always seemed to pop up out of no-where and had a tendency to ask something random, but he was kind enough to talk to her and answer a few of her questions. Eventually though, even the hitter had to put a stop to it when Parker had stealthily sneaked into the kitchen one evening while he'd been methodically been chopping vegetables for dinner and asked him if he was really Billy the Kid. It wasn't the question that made him angry, if anything it made him chuckle to himself, no it was the fact that when she popped up like a jack in the box out of nowhere to ask him, he'd been lost in his art, had not been paying attention to his surroundings and almost chopped his finger off with the knife.

'_It's only a scratch.'_ Parker had told him when he'd sworn loudly at her and banned her from the kitchen indefinitely.

It hadn't been enough to stop her though, instead the petite blonde-haired thief took to conducting her own research, using the basic hacking skills that Hardison had taught her and hacking into a DNA lab based in New Mexico, a place where something the blonde woman had read had suggested that samples of 'The Kids' bones and blood samples taken from 'Bushy' Bill Roberts and John Miller -two men who had claimed to be the famed outlaw - had been tested. Parker later declared that she knew the truth about who he really was, but wouldn't elaborate further.

Just a two weeks or so ago, Parker's obsession led her to announced to the team that she wanted to take some leave so she could go visit a couple of the ghost towns listed in one of her books. When she'd made the suggestion, she had hoped that the others would want to come with her, and was disappointed when not one of them agreed. Instead it was decided that they'd all take a week's vacation and went about making their own plans. So, Parker did what Parker did best, she pouted and sulked and sulked and pouted until finally, Sophie promised to talk to one of the boys about coming with her. Eliot had been recruited, which was just fine with her seeing as though he'd been the nicest of all over her new craze and also she knew that with the hitter, she wouldn't have to drive. However, she hadn't been too happy with his 'outlandish rules.'

'_One week Parker and one week only' Eliot had said, 'And I'll be doing the drivin' too.'_

'_Oooookay,' the thief agreed. _

'_I gotta few ground rules,' continued the hitter, 'No junk food in my truck, no doing anythin' that's gonna to put either of us in danger, no fidgetin' about while I'm drivin', no stealin' anythin' whatsoever. We're going to be normal people on this trip.'_

'_No stealing!' Parker said, her blue eyes wide, 'But I'm a thief!'_

'_Not this time darlin'.' the hitter retorted as he walked out of the front door. 'I'll be here about ten, got a lot of drivin' ahead o' us, so get some sleep. Night.'_

Although their weeks leave wasn't due to start until the day after tomorrow, Eliot had suggested that they leave the following morning so they could attend to a last minute errand of his that could only be done out of state. Last night, Hardison had insisted on hacking into the sat-nav of the truck they'd hired ahead of time in Arizona and loading with all of Parker's places of interest. Parker had noted that Eliot hadn't been too happy about that, but didn't push the subject, figuring that Eliot was just being Eliot.

After the hitter had left, Parker finished up a few things at the office and then headed upstairs to her underused studio apartment which she only ever used for the times when she didn't feel like staying in her compound. She filled a suitcase and a holdall with clothes that were ideal for the hot southern weather and a few things for her wash bag before returning back downstairs to keep Hardison company while he finished up preparing for his own trip away.

**/**

Lost in her thoughts, Parker hadn't heard Nate come down from his upstairs living quarters and stride past her. He was stood by the coffee pot, his unruly curls in his eyes, and three shades whiter than he was on a good day. He had the hangover from hell and he was in misery. He watched the blonde woman smile absent-mindedly, wondering what it was she was thinking about. As the father figure of the hodgepodge family of thieves, it warmed his heart a little to see Parker happy in her own little world, where everything seemed, for the most part a happy place to be.

He thought it was nice for her to find something of her very own to like rather than following Hardison about and pretending to be interested in his hobbies, even though it had annoyed the living hell out of everyone the past couple of months. Nate had worried when Parker had announced her plans, not because he didn't think she was competent enough to go alone, but because her people skills were not what one could call ideal. They were better than they had been in the past, he had to admit, but sometimes that mouth of hers said things before her brain caught up and it was often a source of trouble. Without anyone with her the chances that Parker would wind up stabbing someone a fork or another implement were off the chart high, which was why Sophie had clucked over the situation so much that eventually she'd managed told Parker that she'd recruit one of the boys to accompany her and had managed to convince Eliot to take the trip with her, even if it was by the way of manipulation. The last thing anyone really wanted was to have to go and free her from a prison; they'd already done that once with him. While the coffee pot came to temperature, he smiled to himself and couldn't help but let out a low chuckle as he remembered watching the grifter's coercion of Eliot.

_Eliot Spencer, retrieval specialist and hitter extraordinaire had been in the kitchen, decorating, of all things a freshly baked cake when the brunette had made her move._

'_Oh that looks lovely,' Sophie said as she'd taken a seat at a stool on the other side of the kitchen counter, her hand making a move to take a dip of the whipped cream that was being applied to the cake, 'I can't wait to taste that.'_

'_Yeah, well until I say it's ready; keep your hands to yourself.' Eliot replied without looking up, batting the woman's hand away from his cake._

_Sophie pulled her hand back, 'You're in a stroppy mood tonight.'_

_The hitter shrugged his shoulders, not caring to elaborate on his mood, truth be told he wasn't in one, he just didn't like sticky fingers trying to interfere with his masterpieces._

'_Who's in a stroppy mood?' Nate asked as he sauntered into the kitchen, heading towards his stash of Scotch._

'_Eliot is.' The grifter smiled, 'Obviously someone's plans have fallen through for the vacation week.'_

_Nate poured a double into a crystal tumbler, nodding his head as he did so. 'Candy, Mandy, Sandy or whoever she is cancel?'_

_Eliot growled, 'Its Brandy.'_

'_Awwww, did she get grounded?' Sophie mock pouted in the hitters direction, knowing that she was hitting a nerve teasing him about his 'special friends' age. _

'_No Sophie,' the hitter replied, wiping his hands on a tea cloth and then throwing it back down on to the counter top before accepting the beer that Nate was offering. 'Brandy isn't grounded and you know damn well she's twenty-four. She's gotta babysitting gig down in Key West,' he paused to take a long swig of the beer before adding, 'Not that her plans affect my plans. It's not like we're together or anythin'.'_

'_Key West huh,' Nate took a seat next to the brunette grifter and slid a glass of Pinot Grigio her way. 'Sounds nice, warm, sunny…'_

_The mastermind stopped short when Sophie gave him that look, the one that told him that she was right and he was wrong. _

'_We're going to Paris,' she told him sternly, 'You owe me a shopping trip.'_

_Nate said no more on the subject, knowing that he wasn't going to win this argument tonight, even Eliot knew that as he gave him a knowing smile and a little chuckle as he pretended to take a drink._

'_So that's four of us, all with plans, except Eliot here,' the grifter said. _

'_Hmmmm,' Nate sighed, 'I wouldn't let Parker catch wind of that, she'll want you to drive her.'_

'_What a wonderful idea Nate!' Sophie exclaimed, practically jumping from her seat and scurrying into the kitchen to stand next to the hitter. 'You could go with Parker, keep her company,' she patted his arm gently, 'make sure she keeps out of trouble amongst all those cowboys she's sure to run into.'_

'_Hell no,' Eliot scowled, slightly unnerved by the way that Sophie had patted his arm for the umpteenth time that day, 'Hardison should be the one to take her seeing as they're close and all, instead of goin' to a stupid Witches and Weirdo's party.' At the mention of his name, Hardison shouted through from the console room where he was currently updating his hardware. None of them quite caught what he said; though it sounded like there was a few swear words in there. 'You're dressin' up as a gnome man, it's just wrong.' _

_There were more incoherent ramblings, but the three of them chose to ignore them, none of them really in the mood to wind Alec up any more than he already was, although each one of them suspected that if they wanted to do so it wouldn't take much._

'_What are you going to do then, just mooch around Boston, take a couple of private jobs? Nate enquired._

'_Not that it's really any of your business,' Eliot said, pausing inspect an invisible mark in his pristine icing work, 'but I was thinkin' of catchin' up with a coupla buddies of mine, maybe doin' some fishin', maybe some recon.'_

'_Or…or,' Sophie said excitedly, waving her hands in the air beside him, 'Maybe you could go on Parker's trip with her. Get some fresh air, see some sights, and drive along a dusty highway with the wind in your hair.' _

_The grifter's eyes grew distant and it became quite clear, to Nate at least that she was imagining one of two things. One, her in a fancy sports car driving down a highway with the wind in __**her **__hair or two, she was imagining Eliot driving down a long highway with the wind in his; with or without Parker, looking well like.., he didn't want to think beyond that point, it was just wrong and he'd be having words with the brunette later about that._

_Nate coughed, 'Yeah, I don't think so do you Soph? Not really Eliot's style…' _

'_Oh, yeah, course. Totally agree,' she floundered, blushing slightly, 'But I do think it would be a nice changed of scenery for you Eliot. You and Parker don't really spend that much time together when we're not working or training and it would be nice for you two to bond. You've already been talking with her about her bloody Wild West obsession.'_

'_First of all, it's the Old West,' Eliot grumbled, 'Wild West insinuates that it was all like what you see in the movies, y'know, gunfights in the street were a rare occurrence,' the hitter finished what was left of his beer before continuing, 'and secondly, I ain't taking a trip with Parker, me and her cooped up in a car together for a week, it's just asking for trouble.'_

'_Don't be silly,' Sophie soothed, patting his arm again. Eliot glared at her. 'It'll be fine. And fun! What trouble could you two possibly get yourselves into? I think I'll go and give Parker a quick ring and tell her that you've agreed to go with her. You'll want to drive right?' _

_With that the grifter practically skipped out of the kitchen and headed into the other room, her fingers flitting over her phone before Eliot could even find the words to protest. It took a few seconds but the realisation soon set in and he looked at his friend, the man he'd come to look on as a father figure, in disbelief. He'd just been conned into taking a trip with the little blonde thief who was as mad as a badger. _

'_Well,' Nate said with an amused grin, 'I've always said that Sophie was the best actress I know. But you do know that the er…, the er patting was her neuro-lingustic programming thingamajig.'_

_Eliot stared agog in the direction that Sophie had vanished, his mind quickly searching through all the times that the sneaky grifter had touched him today. Each time she'd touched him, he recalled that it always followed by either by the word 'drive', 'Parker', 'trip' and sometimes all three together. He had been well and truly played and given any other circumstance, Eliot would have probably congratulated her for using the method on a mark, but the fact that she'd used it on him made him angry._

'_Damn it Sophie,' he shouted, slamming his hand down on the counter top. His cake wobbled precariously with the force of the shockwave. 'You don't con your own team!'_

_Nate took Eliot's seething as his cue to leave, he hopped off his stool and wandered into the console room, where Sophie was chatting softly Parker on the phone. Hardison looked like the cat who'd got the cream, he clearly thought that the hitter had gotten what he deserved for insulting him with his Witches and Weirdo's comment. _

'_Anyway,' Nate pondered to himself, 'now at least we don't have to worry about Parker running into some kind of trouble and we all have plans now, even if some of us aren't too happy about them.' _

_The mastermind stood watching his on-again, off-again significant other and wondering if he could employ her methods to try and change her mind about going to Paris. After all if she could do it to Eliot, it couldn't be that hard could it?_

**_/_**

The bubbling of the coffee pot brought Nate back to the present and back to find Parker, staring at him like he was mad. He poured himself a large mug, took a sip and smiled at the girl.

'Parker,' he smiled as the coffee started to do its job, 'You and Eliot all ready for the big trip?'

Parker thought for a moment and looked as though she was choosing her words carefully. 'Oh yeah,' she smiled placing her empty cola can on the counter top. 'Can't wait, a whole week stuck in a truck with Eliot! I may as well be taking my trip with Oscar the Grouch.'

'Aw Parker, that's not fair,' Nate grimaced and pushed his hair back out of his eyes with his hand. 'I know he was kind of bullied into going with you, but Sophie wouldn't have done what she did if she thought you'd both end up killing each other off.

'Hmmmm,' the blonde woman mumbled, 'Are you really sure about that Nate? It could be all part of her master plan. I mean you're the one going to Paris with her, she could make you shop to death.' Parker shuddered, 'What a horrible way to go.'

Nate didn't reply. He picked up his coffee and headed out of the kitchen into the main room, patting Parker's leg as he passed. 'I think you're getting yourself all paranoid over nothing. Yes, Eliot may have been unfairly bullied into going with you, but I think once you get on your way, you'll have a good time. Both of you.'

'Yeah well, we'll just have to wait and see about that, but don't come back and haunt me cause I'll tell you I told you so.'

'I'll be the one saying I told you so,' the older man smiled as he reached the spiral staircase that lead to his upstairs living quarters, Parker's words already haunting him. Could one be shopped to death? He didn't know, but he sure hoped Sophie didn't try.


	4. Chapter 2

_Thanks so much to everyone who has read this and also a massive thanks to those who have sent me PM's or left a review. It really does mean a lot to me that this has been well received. If I've not replied to your review yet I will be doing so this weekend when I catch up with myself. Without further ado I present to you a new chapter.**  
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**Chapter 2**

A little after nine-thirty, Eliot Spencer found himself pulling up alongside the curb outside of McRory's and rather than getting out he sat inside his silver-grey Chevy Silverado, anxiously tapping the steering wheel with his fingers in an even rhythm; arguing back and forth with himself how he could get out of his road trip with Parker. A whole week cooped up in a vehicle with the crazy blonde girl who quite often got on his last nerve with her persistent hyperactive tendencies was ultimately what he would call one of his worst nightmares and it was that more than anything else that was putting him off been her chaperone of sorts. Eliot had already thought of a few excuses that he could use; a job with a private contractor in the Middle East, a call to arms to rescue an old friend held hostage or a covert operation to liberate a small country on behalf of Uncle Sam. Of course, he could just pretend to be ill or just pull away from the curb side and drive as far as his gas would take him until Hardison inevitably tracked him with GPS.

In all of these scenarios, he saw Sophie, her face grim with disappointment, Nate staring indifferently out of a window with his favourite liquor by his side and Hardison up in arms, ranting about what an ass the great Eliot Spencer was, all while comforting the little blonde thief. It was Parker's face, that pulled at his heart strings most of all, tear stained and morose all because he'd let her down, the one person she seemed to trust more than Hardison had let her down just as others had before him. And that made him feel like crap.

Eliot shook his head, removing the images from his imagination. _No_, he decided silently, _I ain't gonna be an inconsiderate jerk and make her sad._

The blonde woman's enthusiasm and excitement had seemed to reach epic levels over the past few days and it seemed to the others that it was finally catching on with the hitter. However, truth be told, although Eliot would never, ever admit it - especially in light of how Sophie had duped him in to accompanying the thief on her trip in the first place – but despite the reservations he had about Parker there was a part of him that was excited as hell too – he just wasn't willing to let anyone know that, well maybe Parker over the course of the next couple of days otherwise he wouldn't be able to justify a change to her trip itinerary.

Parker's new craze had sparked something inside of him that he hadn't felt since he was a boy when he used to stay on his grandparents ranch. As young boy Eliot would spend almost every weekend with them, helping his grandpa attend the horses, pretending he was a cowboy who was keeping rustlers off his land. Sometimes, he'd wear a sheriff's costume and flash his badge at the other ranchers, who would play along with him, particularly when he'd make the desperados stick 'em up with his little silver gun. He never ever hunted Indians though, well only the once until his grandmother told him of their heritage. She was a wise woman, a native Cherokee who not only helped instil a sense of right and wrong into Eliot's moral fibre, but also told him old stories passed down through the years. Even now, as he sat thinking of his happy, innocent childhood, he could remember how his grandpa smelled of hard work, of the horses and leather but he particularly remembered his grandmother's warm huggles and her clean, soapy smell.

When he was ten, his grandpa has asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he had told him that he wanted to have a ranch so he could be a real cowboy. As the years passed however Eliot had grown up and stopped playing cowboys and instead found other things to occupy him, particularly girls, sports, girls, cooking, girls and more girls. And then had suddenly Aimee had been the one to occupy his time until he'd joined the forces. Eliot had been very good though, the best some had said and he'd moved up the ranks quickly and eventually ending up undertaking training for the Black Ops program. While he had expected there to be some changes, what he found overall was that a different life from what he'd had before. He had seen things that had changed him, turned him into the man that he had been before Dubenich had thrown him, Nate and the others together and now even though he did things to help the helpless there was still no coming back from the things that he had seen and done.

Many years ago, before leaving home, Eliot had filed his childhood dreams away, the dreams of being a rancher and having a family with the ample red-head who he had loved more than anything and had devoted his life to doing what he thought was good. This so-called good that he did, well it was this that had had been the straw to break the camels back – he made a promise that he had to keep and one that he couldn't. He had lived with that guilt everyday, knowing that he hadn't been around for Aimee, that he'd broken her heart, that he hadn't been around for his grandparents last days and that he was the reason why his family was fragmented. That was the crux of it all now as he made up his mind for the last time, he had a new family, even though they may not be bonded by blood, he wasn't going to let another member of his family down, besides, because of Parker his dreams weren't quite as dusty as they used to be.

_**/**_

Eliot took the keys from the ignition and exited the truck before he could change his mind and drive off, hurrying into the apartment block above McRory's. He took the steps up to the suite of apartments that formed the Boston branch of Leverage Associates and Consulting. Each one of them had a large studio apartment, making it resemble the top floor of a house, which was apt considering that they were like a small family; Nate and Sophie being the parents, Parker and Hardison the two younger siblings and himself being the older brother. Although it wasn't ideal for five grown adults to live like this it worked. There were several other apartments on this floor that had been converted to suit their needs. There was a small gym and a couple of guest rooms which came in handy if they were trying to protect a client or if they had guests – it had been Tara's room when she had filled in for Sophie. It had been decided that a studio should be used for Hardison's vast array of electronic gadgets and there was another that was used for the props that the computer genius made on a weekend – something that Eliot always teased him about.

Before Eliot even reached the door, he could hear Parker rambling at a mile a minute about all the places that they were going to visit and that she would bring souvenirs back for everyone. He was sure that the others had switched off and were doing what he called selective listening; a process in which they only appeared to be listening but zoned out until something was really relevant. Eliot took a deep breath and ventured inside, only to find that Parker was sat atop the long bar in the viewing area, eating a bowl of cereal and talking Hardison's ear off. Sophie and Nate were probably hiding out in the next room where it was inevitably quieter than where he'd just made his entrance. Trained in stealth, his arrival wasn't heard by either the thief or the hacker, which was ideal because they seemed to be talking about him and while he knew that he shouldn't eavesdrop on a private conversation, he just couldn't help himself.

'You don't think Eliot's gonna be grumpy all week do you?' Parker asked the hacker, who had his back to her seemingly working on a new program code, 'I mean I feel kinda bad that Sophie conned him into coming with me, but I wanna have fun this week and I don't want him to pissed with me when really it's not my fault. And what's with all his rules, don't do this and don't do that, anyone'd think that he was my dad or something, and we all know what happened there.' Parker made a slashing motion across her through with her thumb.

Alec Hardison didn't tear his attention away from what he was engrossed in, he was seemingly running a program on the main computer, although he paused for a moment to take on board the thief's question and the rest of her ramble. The whole trip was a bit of a sticky situation. While he considered Parker his girl, even though nothing had happened between the two of them, and Eliot his brother, the thought of them in such close proximity to each other for a week unnerved him ever so slightly. He trusted both of them implicitly, but he'd never met a woman yet, who was completely impervious to Eliot's Mid South-western charms.

Secretly, he hoped that the hitter's pissy mood continued and Parker would end up ditching him and end up returning to Boston earlier than planned. However, the other part of him, the part that wasn't affected by the green-eyed monster wanted her to have a great time and seeing as he had gone ahead and made plans to do his thing without even considering that the two friends would end up road-tripping together. If anything, he thought Parker might have changed her mind about her trip and instead go do something wacky like steal the Crown Jewels or similar. The young man had to give her her dues, she was nothing but determined and he like the others figured that she needed this to get her crazy Wild West obsession out of her system and Eliot's accompanying her would be sure to keep her out of trouble.

'Nah, babe,' Hardison replied, 'Eliot's just pissed at Sophie for doing her whammy on him, he'll be cool, fo' sure. And if he aint, well I'll kick his ass.'

'You'll kick my ass,' Eliot's husky drawl interjected, making Alec and Parker turn their heads to where he was stood against one of the wooden pillars, arms crossed across his chest. 'Cause that's gonna happen!'

A shared look of shock and horror mixed on both of his friends faces at the realisation that their conversation had been overheard, or at least the last part of Alec's comment to Parker about the hitter.

'E… I was just messing dawg,' the hacker stumbled, 'Ain't nobody gonna kick your ass 'cept maybe that Quinn dude that one time. But we cool, we cool. Why y'all sneaking around anyways? Dint your momma teach you no manners… like a frickin' ghost man.'

Eliot smirked a little, knowing that his friend was perturbed by his presence in light of his remark. 'Parker, you ready?'

The thief gave a little nod and slid off the table top, landing on her feet with a non-existent thud and with more grace than a ballerina.

'Good, let's get on the road then, we gotta lotta ground to cover today,' Eliot said, 'we've gotta drive to Virginina before we leave to run my errand.'

If there was any wavering in his voice, the others didn't pick up on it, which was good because he didn't really want to explain why he had to drive that far before embarking on the rest of the trip. In actual fact, his errand was only one state over in Rhode Island, but he wasn't feeling the need to share that fact with anyone although, he knew that he would have to tell Parker on the drive down where they were actually going. And even he hadn't decided on that yet!

'Virginia, what's in Virginia?' Nate asked as he wondered in the room and headed towards the kitchen, an empty scotch glass in his hand.

'A whole lot of Virginians.' Eliot replied, as he and Parker closed the distance from where they'd been standing previously to the breakfast bar.

'Ewwww gross,' Parker remarked, 'You're going there to do the sex thing with one aren't you. Those virgins aint gonna see it comin', well until, y'know,' the blonde woman made a contorted face that looked like she was in pain, 'Yeah.'

The two men looked at her in utter disbelief for just a moment, before they realised that they shouldn't be, because it was after all a typical Parker-ish comment.

'No.' Eliot growled, running a hand through his hair, 'that's not, that's not what I...'

'Er Parker,' Nate began, trying to find the right words to explain what Eliot meant, 'Eliot, er, he, er… Parker, Virginians are from Virginia, they're not, erm vir… never mind.'

Parker shrugged her shoulders and immediately moved on, 'Well I'm not waiting in the truck while you do whatever it is you're gonna do. Just sayin'. Anyways, I've just gotta tell Sophie bye and then we can go, 'kay?' The little blonde thief skipped off and disappeared into the tv room next door, only to re-emerge seconds later with slightly disgruntled Sophie in tow.

'Right well, let's make this quick shall we? I'm in the middle of something,' the brunette said, giving Parker a long squeeze.

Nate raised an eyebrow in the hitter's direction and he in turn shared a look with the hacker, who had ambled up towards where the small group was now stood. Hardison nodded his head in the direction of the other room where they held movie nights and such and widened his eyes.

Whenever Sophie had the time, she liked to catch up on her guilty pleasures - soap operas from back home. At one point she'd tried to make it a weekly get together, but there's was only so much of them that anyone of them could take, particularly of the one that was set in a small village where the people in it talked in such a thick brogue that it was impossible to understand. And then there was the one that they'd had to insist on having subtitled that was set in somewhere in London where people talked like the grifter sometimes did on cons. And not one of them could get their heads around the idea that there was always a pub or a market or what was called a 'corner shop' involved in every episode. Eventually, they'd left Sophie to her own devices and she no longer pushed the subject of having them join her, though it now meant that would be easily pissed off if she was disturbed.

'I hope you have a lovely time on your trip sweetie,' the grifter smiled, her snappy attitude all but melting away as she and Parker pulled apart, 'Look after her Eliot and _be_ _nice_.' Sophie added, giving the hitter a solemn look and a heartfelt smile.

'You just go easy on Nate,' he smiled back, 'the old man over there can't take all the damage you're gonna be doing to him in Paris.'

Nate looked affronted at the word 'old', he was only in his very late-forties and Eliot who was in his mid-thirties was clearly catching up to him, but said nothing, silently remembering his conversation with Parker earlier that morning.

Hardison scooped the blonde thief up next and spun her around gently. 'Nah, you ain't needing to be looked after mama, you got mad skills, aint no body gonna need looking after on this trip.' The hacker and the hitter fist punched.

Nate was next to give Parker a fatherly hug while Eliot took his turn to give Sophie a quick cuddle. After another quick round of 'goodbyes' and 'have a good vacations', Eliot went to retrieve Parker's bags and the two headed out to the truck in silence. Within minutes, they were heading towards the I-95, leaving the Boston skyline behind them and journeying unchartered territory; a hot-headed hitter and a crazy little thief on a road trip that both were sure that afterwards nothing would ever be the same again.


	5. Chapter 3

**I've got that Friday Feeling and so I'm gonna give you a double helping of chapters in this update. Thanks so much for all the reviews - sorry about taking my own sweet time in sending you a reply. Anyhoo, Happy Mothers Day to all those in the UK, hope you have a lovely day with all those you love. Enjoy.  
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**Laura**

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**Chapter 3**

_The summer heat was intense, stifling and in Emmeline Whittingstall's opinion far to hot to be wearing a corseted crinoline dress and matching bonnet of lemon-yellow over her blond curls to go to church. She had tried to argue her point with Betsy, the grey-haired Negro housemaid that had been with her family since as long she could remember, but Betsy had told her that it was only proper for a lady to be dressed appropriately, especially considering that they were attending the town picnic after the service. Church on Sunday's was a given, and prayers were said every day in the ranch house, Betsy, a freed slave insisted on thanking the Lord for almost everything, including breakfast, lunch and supper but usually her father skipped the picnics and the luncheons in favour of returning to the house to drink whisky and prepare for the week ahead. The past two Sunday's however, her father had insisted that they make the effort to attend the festivities. It seemed to Emmeline that her father had turned over a new leaf. His drinking had less than halved and he had once again started making the effort to spend time with her. His change seemed to have come about after the encounter that she had endured with the stranger in black. _

_When she had returned to the house, she sought out her father and told him of the man and his message, his face had paled and he had seemed to age considerably. It took a few minutes for the greater picture to set in before she realised that the man she adored despite his misgivings, was terrified that his bad business dealings and gambling debts with the local rogues had caught up with him; and not only that, that they were willing to accost his flesh and blood to make their messages heard. Zachariah Whittingstall had asked his daughter to swear on the bible as to if the man in black had tried to touch her in an un-gentlemanly manner or whether he'd tried to rob her of her virtue. Emmeline had shaken her head and told her father what he wanted to here, omitting the truth about the stranger pulling her close and kissing her silly. Her father had seemed appeased at that. _

_In the light of day, she had noticed that her father's demeanour was shaken, he was sullen at breakfast and as noon approached and he left the house he looked like he might take ill; he returned after supper, dirty, dusty with matted blood in his hair from a small wound on his head. Although her father had shooed her away, it became clear to the young girl that he had an altercation with the man called Black or at the very least one of his cronies. Things got better after that. It was like he'd become a new man, and Emmeline was thankful to the Lord for sending an intervention that day. _

_The preacher liked to talk a lot about the Lord. Every Sunday, the small white-washed church was packed to the rafters, with just about everyone in the township squeezing inside. Today was like every other. The sermon was about sinning and forgiving those who had sinned. Emmeline felt as though he was talking about her, causing her to flush and feel even hotter than she already was. She had lied, lied on the bible and taken the Lord Almighty's name in vain. Part of her felt very guilty about this act of rebellion, but the other part of her, the very wanton part of her that wanted to be coveted again more than anything and that often outweighed the guilty feelings inside. The mere thought of those startling blue eyes were enough to make a fire stoke up in her belly, and though she didn't quite understand why, she liked the feeling. After the prayers and been spoken and a hymn or two had been sung, the service ended and Emmeline slipped her arm though her fathers and stepped into the sunshine. After a few pleasantries were exchanged with some of the congregation, her father led her away from the church; making a short stop at the cemetery to place a bouquet of wild flowers on her mother's grave before leading her down the meadow by the creek and towards the picnic._

_The town of Angel Creek had once been an out post founded in the early part of the eighteen-thirties when the wagon trails began to come through the lands. Within a decade, it had grown into a bustling town. There were some three hundred people in the town, some of these were immigrants from Europe and Mexico and the handful of freed slaves including Betsy, but mostly they were migrants from other states coming from as far as Massachusetts in the east and Oregon in the west. There was a near by fort used by the Confederate Army and although the town only had one main street with street fronts on either side, there was only one saloon, but that alone took up almost a third of one side of the street and was a place for gambling, whoring and billiards. _

_You could buy practically anything from any one of the stores – the general store doubled as a drug store and had an attached bakery, where once a week on a Sunday, people would take chickens, hogs and various other meats to cook while the preacher preached the good word. A tailor, dress makers and milliner made and sold clothing and footwear for all ages while the hardware store sold not only tin and silver wares, but also sold guns and ammunition. There was a carpenter who occasionally made coffins, but normally did a steady trade making furniture. The livery and stables though mostly in the main street, stretched into one of the back streets where there was also a corral and right next door there was a black smith, who could smith just about anything and not just horseshoes._

_The courthouse was still being constructed, so the Sherriff and the Marshall and their deputies had large offices which had a jail and oddly enough a lawyers office. The doctor and his clinic were right next door and a boarding house and eatery was opposite the saloon. The side streets that snaked off behind the main street led off to houses and public outhouses. The white washed church was at the very top of the street, on a small hill which overlooked the cemetery. The large school house was at the other end of the town, set in a lush green meadow with a small stream that connected to the creek. _

_There were a few homesteads a short way away from the main part of town, though not many. And there were one or two farms that good pastures, but these were as far out as a mile away. The Whittingstall Ranch was close to the boarder of Texas, with lush grazing grounds for the cattle on either side of the Red River._

_The walk down to the meadow behind the school house was a tiring affair. It was a dry kind of heat that made Emmeline want to sit on the porch and drink lemonade or swim in the creek, her only wish was to find a nice shady bough to sit under for the duration of the picnic, where she could remove the damn bonnet and run her hands through her loose blond curls, maybe untie a few laces on her corset too. In the distance, the large gathering of townsfolk came into view, but not before they passed the dancing girls on the saloon balcony cat calling to her father. She could feel his body stiffen as the smell of stale whisky drifted past his nose; he was tempted to go inside no doubt, but his resolve held and with a reassuring squeeze to her arm they carried on. Emmeline smiled proudly and once again thanked the Lord. _

_Yellow and blue flowers dotted the meadow grasses filling the warm air with a heady perfume that combined with the sweet smelling apple pies and roast meats. After a mouth watering plate of greens, sliced roast pig and a helping of apple pie, the young girl had left her father talking to the town's council men and stole away to find some shade underneath the great oak tree in the middle of the meadow; her bonnet quickly removed and a lace or two on the corset of her dress untied, albeit rather awkwardly. From her position Emmeline couldn't help but smile as she watched the children flitting around playing with a ball made of old cloths and playing tag; the sounds of carefree laughter carried on the breeze bringing back happy memories of her own childhood before her schooling ended abruptly and her dreams of becoming a teacher dashed as the war began and her father was conscripted to fight. _

_Many of the children were just a few years younger than her, but as the exciting news that the Katy Line would be coming through the territory soon, more and more children were born in Angel Creek, and Emmeline fancied that soon they would have to build a new school to accommodate the students, though for now, it served it's purpose and provided the meadow to the townsfolk to meet on for gatherings like today's. Surrounded by sparse woodland, the pasture seemed to go on for miles in all directions, defying the rules set down about going beyond the safe zone and simply asking to be ambushed by the savages in the wilderness. _

_As the shade from the tree moved with the sun, she shifted her position so that was hidden from the view .Emmeline closed her eyes and wondered if her life would have been different if the war hadn't happened. Although they had lived a comfortable life and employed freed slaves on a modest ranch that her family had owned for many years, times where hard and she and her mother would do what they could to get by; most of the cattle and horses were sold , her mother found work as a nurse and she would sew socks and blankets for regiments.. Shortly after the war ended and her father's return in eighteen sixty-eight, her parents had decided to pack up their covered wagon with their worldly possessions, live stock and enough cotton seed to start a small plantation and leave their old home in Oak Hills, Virginia for a new life in the west; they joined a wagon train heading westwards in outside of Atlanta and together they travelled for almost nine months and made it to their final destination just in time to prepare for the winter. In the spring, only a half of the wagon train left the settlement and carried on further west to California in hopes of striking gold. _

_Perhaps, she wondered silently that she would have carried on her studies and become a teacher like her mother had been. Instead, she spent most of her days now helping around the ranch and ensuring that the household ran smoothly in the recent absence of her father._

**/**

_Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't hear the approaching footsteps until it was too late and she could feel the presence of someone in front of her. A million thoughts ran through her mind, wondering if she was about to stolen away by a rogue or a savage who had been hiding in the trees at the north of the pasture. Tentatively, she opened on eye and was immediately relieved that it wasn't a savage, of that she was sure, for savages never wore boots of leather. _

_Emmeline silently counted to three and then opened her other eye – no, it wasn't a savage, but it was definitely a rogue. Her heart bounded in her chest; her head swam and that burning feeling in the pit of her stomach burned stronger as she looked up and was face to face once again with the blue eyes that haunted her thoughts each and every day. Again, he was dressed in black, but unlike her previous encounter, he had no black kerchief over his face. She was taken aback at how ruggedly handsome he was now that she could see him in all his glory. Beyond his blue eyes, a smattering of facial hair accentuated his hard jaw line and framed his mouth, her gaze stopped at his lips momentarily as the memory of his kiss floated to the surface. Oh how she wanted to lose herself in wild abandonment and throw herself at him._

'_You shouldn't be so far away from the other folks,' he drawled in a low husky voice, 'There's dangers out there in the wilderness,' he motioned over his shoulder towards the trees, 'wouldn't want ya to be captured now, would we?'_

_Emmeline was momentarily struck dumb by his concern considering that the last time he'd spoken to her, he'd dragged her through a hedge and held her against her will. _

'_I'm sure I'll be jus' fine,' she smiled politely as she made the move to stand, finding her legs were not her friend. He offered her a hand and helped her to stand. 'I'm a big girl, I can hold my own.'_

_He laughed heartily at her, 'I'm sure ya can, Miss, I'm sure ya can,' he moved closer, closing the small gap between them. _

_The blonde girl stumbled backwards into the tree, keeping her eyes locked with his. She grasped the gnarled truck with her fingers for support. _

'_But what if I tried to steal ya away, I'm more dangerous than the savages.'_

_She said nothing, just tried to look haughtily at him. Emmeline wasn't fond of people who seemed to be too self-assured. Her look clearly amused him because he chuckled again, more to himself than her. He raised his hand to her face, his skin burning her own where his feather-light touch trailed down her cheek and to her mouth where he paused before running his thumb lightly over her full pink lips. A breath hitched in her chest and she began to feel a blush creep over her._

'_Hmmmm,' he murmured, 'I don't think ya'd run away from me would ya? Ya should though, ya know, ya should,' _

_Emmeline swallowed hard and nodded. She knew that if she had any sense about her at this minute in time that she should kick the man in his groin and run back to her father who would dole out his own justice for taking advantage of his only daughter. Sense had left her the minute his face moved closer to hers, so close that she could feel his apple pie scented breath against her flushed skin. Like a rattlesnake's prey she was rooted to the spot, waiting for the strike. _

'_Thing is Miss, even if ya tried, I couldn't letcha.' As quick as a flash, his hand moved into her curls and pulled her face to his while his other hand snaked around her waist and pulled her body into his. _

_Emmeline's second kiss was just as good as the first, better even. Her lips moved in time with hers and though she was initially horrified when his tongue slipped inside her mouth and began to massage her own, she found that she enjoyed it. His hard body was like heaven pressed against her own, one of her own hands found its way into his head where she freed his caramel-coloured hair from the leather tie, allowing it to fall to his shoulders. She liked silken feel against her fingers, while her other hand grabbed a fistful of his black shirt at the base of his back. As they both deepened the kiss, a lack of inhibition came over her and she found herself raising a leg, resting it against his side, wiggling so that the most intimate part of her was resting against the most intimate part of him. In fluid motion, he slid his hand down her hip and held her leg tightly so that she couldn't break the contact. _

_It seemed like they had been kissing for hours, days even when the winded carried the sound of her father's voice calling her name to their ears. The man growled against her lips and seemingly defeated, he pulled away panting. He didn't relinquish his hold on though, and a wicked smile played across the lips that he had just kissed her with. _

'_What you do to a man Miss Emmeline, only the Lord knows,' He lowered his head again and gave her a chaste peck on the lips. 'Promise to meet with me tonight,' she nodded quickly, her eyes wide, 'good, midnight, right here.' _

_With her promise, he released her and quickly stole back into the trees from where he came, giving her a just a few seconds before her father rounded the great oak tree, finding her in a sitting position with her head against the bark, her eyes shut feigning sleep._

**/**

'_Emme,' her father whispered, placing his hand on her arm, 'Time to wake up.'_

_The young girl fluttered her eyes open and she managed a weak smile, her face visibly flushed but hopefully to be believed that it was from sleeping in the summer heat. Her father helped her to stand and she quickly smoothed the creases of her dress down and picked up the bonnet that she had thrown down earlier. Together, they walked arm in arm, as they had done earlier that day back across the meadow and exchanged the last few pleasantries of the day with a small group of men stood next to the refreshments; Mr. Baumgartner, the elderly gentleman who ran the general store gave her a lollypop before shaking her hands and wishing her well. Then there was Mr. Carter, a portly man of around her father's age who owned the liveries smiled at her with watery eyes and made her shiver and then there was one more. Emmeline hadn't noticed him immediately, a man around the same height as her, perhaps an inch or two higher, dressed in black with his hair tied back in a leather tie. His get up made her flush as she thought about her encounter with her blue eyed man, and she wasn't prepared for what happened next. _

'_Mr. Black,' _

_At her father's words,. Emmeline felt a small bubble of anger flare up in her chest as she remember the day her father returned from his high noon meeting with this Mr. Black and she felt appalled that her father was still having dealings with him The man turned on his heel to face him and her jaw dropped open._

'_Have you met my daughter Emmeline, Mr. Black?'_

_There in front of her stood the man she had been kissing less not twenty minutes earlier. His blue eyes smiling at her father, and a wicked smile on his lips that was clearly meant for her. _

'_No sir,' he drawled, 'No, I don't believe I've had that pleasure yet,' he gave a subtle wink as she slowly and politely took her hand in his raised it to his mouth for a kiss. 'Very pleased to meet ya Miss, very pleased indeed; Caleb Black at your service.' _


	6. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Parker's dream had left her shaken to say the least and even Eliot noticed on the drive down Route 66, that she was quiet and withdrawn. The blonde thief wasn't used to having dreams of this nature or even dreams at all. This had been the second one within the space of forty-eight hours and she didn't understand why they'd started now. The ending to her dream had been shocking to say the very least – no more so that when the man turned around to introduce himself he looked very much like Eliot. It had been even more vivid than the previous one, not only did her lips have that same tingle when she awoke, but she also felt, well, for the lack of a better word, horny. Parker rarely felt like that, and when she did, she never acted on it. Sex was something that she'd never understood, she knew how things worked, tried it a couple of times in her youth and she could grasp the idea that people like Eliot did it – she wasn't even going to think about Sophie and Nate doing anything like that – and that Hardison would probably like to have sex with her, but in her mind sex was a messy complication that she could do without.. Parker was in misery. She was horny as hell and worse than that she was horny for a man who looked as though he could have been Eliot's long lost brother. A thought came to her for a fleeting moment that the hitter's suggestions of there being something wrong with her were right and he could see something that she and the others couldn't

'Parker,' Eliot's voice called out to her, breaking her train of thought. 'Parker, we're almost there,' She nodded and turned to stare out of the window to watch the rest of rural Oklahoma pass by, though it was hampered by the torrential rain that hammered constantly against the pick up and flowed like a waterfall down the glass.

It was a state that she'd never been to and wasn't exactly where she had in mind for the week long trip visiting the ghost towns of the Old West. Eliot however had sprung this on her just minutes before they'd boarded a plane. He'd briefly explained that his errand was in Rhode Island and not in Virginia as he'd led her and the rest of their crew to believe, he hadn't elaborated on it further and together they made the hour long journey to Providence. They'd just pulled up along side the curb in front of a lawyer's office in Downtown Providence and the hitter had asked her to wait for five minutes while he went inside and not to touch anything inside the truck. Parker had thought it a bit cloak and dagger, but in their profession, she supposed that it was mainly all they did anyway. True to his word, he returned not more than five minutes later, started the truck and they were on the way once again. The next time they stopped, they were in Prembroke, MA at a private air strip, where a private jet was waiting for them.

'_Why are we at an airstrip?' Parker enquired, her head cocked to one side, her eyes wide and inquisitive. _

'_Listen Parker,' Eliot had explained, 'I know you wanna go to all those towns in your book, but I promise you they ain't all that. I got my reasons why I'm only tellin' ya now, but I promise the place we're goin' is better than those over-commercialised museums.' _

'_I knew you'd ruin this,' the thief crossed her arms and pouted as she stared at the jet on the tarmac, 'You're so mean and grouchy to me and you're always telling me there's something wrong with me. I've never had anything of my own to, except this trip and maybe all my money, cereal and stuff and now you're trying to take it away from me.'_

_Eliot looked hurt, his lips pressed together so hard they were a white line on his tan skin. 'Damn it Parker, I'm trying to do something nice for you.'_

'_Hmmmfff,' was the only reply that he was met with._

'_I get you're pissed with me, we should have discussed this, but I didn't want anyone to know okay,' the hitter admitted, 'I wanted to surprise you and make sure you had a trip to remember. That plane's goin' to depart in about twenty minutes and if you wanna come to Oklahoma with me for a real good time, that's up to you. But you'll be makin' your own way back to Boston if ya don't.'_

_He waved the truck's keys in front of her before making a fist and exiting the truck, leaving Parker stunned at his words. She'd seen Eliot pissed off, raging mad to the point that he wanted to hit something before but this was a different kind of pissed off. He was hurt and it made his anger freakily calm and it was freaking her out. _

_Parker had never really given much thought in the past to other people's feelings but over the past couple of years things had changed and now she felt bad, really bad especially as she figured that Eliot had obviously heard her exchange with Hardison that morning and when he'd tried to do something nice and arranged a surprise, god knows how long ago, for her in spite of that she'd acted like a spoiled brat. _

_'Way to screw up Parker!' she told herself sternly, 'Guess I should remove my foot from my mouth and say sorry.' _

_She hadn't had to go far to make amends with her friend, he was leant against the back of the truck, his arms crossed in his usual way, brooding as usual. 'So Oklahoma, huh,' Parker said in a low voice, 'you wanna tell me what's so frickin' great about Oklahoma?'_

_Eliot turned to face the blonde woman and gave her a lazy cat-like smile, 'No, not yet. I'll tell you when we land; right now we've got a flight to catch,' he pushed his hair out of his face, reached into the back of the truck and threw Parker her holdall. 'Come on Sparky.' _

_Parker couldn't help but give a small chuckle at his use of the nickname she used for him. 'I hope you know that you're buying me root beer floats and hot fudge sundaes for dinner,' she called as she followed him across the tarmac and towards the plane, not knowing what lay in store for her, but somehow trusting that Eliot wouldn't let her down._

**/**

The short flight had been a pleasant one, both the hitter and the thief used to the time to catch up on their reading; Parker engrossed in another book about the 'Old West' and Eliot reading a well worn paperback that looked as though it would fall apart. The plane landed at a private airport just outside of Oklahoma City and Parker had been surprised to find that Eliot had had the good sense to hire a truck and have it waiting for them. Bags in hand, they made their way across the tarmac to where it was waiting, dumped the bags on the flat bed and swiftly made the drive into Oklahoma City. They drove along the road in comfortable silence to the place where they were to stay for the night, The Hampton Inn, an upmarket hotel where Eliot had managed to get them a suite with an immense view of the ball park that was the home of Oklahoma City Redhawks.

Parker had been ravenous and eager to cash in on her ice cream and root beer agreement by the time they'd checked in - under their aliases of Michael Colton and Alice White - and after dropped their bags in their respective rooms the decision was made between the two of them to go out for dinner. Eliot seemed to know the city quite well, and it wasn't until they were sat in a steakhouse, ploughing their way through huge rib eye steaks, baked potatoes and sour cream, corn, lobster and shrimp, that Parker discovered why.

'_So come on Eliot, why here?' the thief asked through a mouth full of buttery shellfish, 'I mean, what's so special about this place you wanna take me?,' she paused to swallow her food, 'And why Oklahoma?'_

_Eliot looked thoughtful for a moment and took a long swig of his beer before he replied. 'Well, I'm from round these parts, sorta, I was born in Texas' he waited for his words to register with his friend, her eyes went wide when she realised that she was in his home State, knowing that it was probably the only really personal thing that he'd ever told her or anyone for that matter, 'But I grew up here, not in the City, about an hours drive away.''_

'_Seriously! That's like, wow. Really, you really grew up in Oklahoma!' Parker rambled as she shook her head and tried to stab another shrimp with her fork, 'Hang on though, when we helped that girl Aimee, we were in Kentucky and you were going to marry her. We all just assumed that you were from there.'_

_At the mention of his red-headed ex-girlfriend, Eliot felt a bubble of guilt rise in his throat. He still wasn't proud of how he'd broken her heart, but like he told Nate, you can't keep your promise to more than one person and at the time he'd stupidly felt that serving his country was more important that some girl who would tie him down. Eliot knew that his choices had had a knock on effect with everyone in his life and not just his former girlfriend. He didn't have a good relationship with his father, he rarely spoke to him and that was usually if his mother didn't answer the phone when he called. Their exchanges were cordial and Eliot was sure that his father had never quite forgiven him for wanting to get out the small town that held so little for him; the small hardware shop had been his fathers life and it had been his dream for Eliot to take over the store. An argument the night before the hitter went off to fight for his country was the last time that they had seen each other. _

_His momma had always said he and his father were as stubborn as each other, two peas in a pod and had more in common with each other than either his sister or brother did with either of them. Of course, he knew that his father had retired and sold up the business before a large superstore moved into the area and Eliot had made sure that they had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. After all, what was the point of being a multi-millionaire if he couldn't take care of his own?_

'_Yeah, well when you assume you make an ass outta you and me,' he grumbled, 'Aimee's daddy Willie used to do some work with my grandpa down in Jackson County until he bought his own place outta state. Her momma died and she came to live with her aunt. We went to school together.' _

_Eliot paused to watch Parker practically inhale half a baked potato, a slightly disgusted feeling washing over him, but only slightly. He hadn't seen her eat like this for a long time, particularly food groups that he considered healthy and it seemed that she was working her way through all the sides like they were going out of fashion. _

'_So about this place you're taking me to, spill,' Parker swallowed hard and washed the potato down with her root beer, 'What's so special about this place compared to the places I had planned to go visit?'_

'_When I was a kid, my grandma used to tell me old stories that had been passed down from generation to generation. She was Cherokee, and no I ain't descended from a damn princess before you ask,' Parker wasn't going to, 'Some were old Cherokee legends others were about the famed outlaws from the Old West and the other was about a town called Angel Creek…' _

'_Angel Creek never heard of it.' _

'_Yeah well those books of yours only detail the ones that were made famous by the outlaws of the day.' _

_Parker pushed her plate away and leant forward on the Formica table top, now giving her friend her full attention._

'_Angel Creek had it's fair share of gun fights, but that's not why I wanna take you there, it's seeped in real history and hasn't been bought up and commercialised by the tourist trap.'_

'_You mean it's dilapidated and a death trap,' the blonde thief grumbled, 'that's just great Eliot, thanks a bunch for ruining my trip. Again!'_

_Parker's words were like another slap in the face from someone who he couldn't even defend himself against; it wasn't like he even particularly wanted to come on this trip, he was the one who'd been duped into bringing the fanatical woman in the first place._

'_Y'know I keep trying to do nice things for you,' Eliot retorted, 'I've arranged transportation, hotels and I'm sharing stuff with you that even Nate doesn't know, stuff that he doesn't have in his files. I didn't even wanna come on this stupid trip. I could have gone fishin', but I agreed to come and keep an eye on you to appease Sophie.'_

'_I don't need a babysitter.' _

'_Fine.'_

'_Fine.'_

'_Fine.'_

_Both the hitter and thief sat in silence. Eliot, with his arms crossed, looked across the restaurant, watching a waitress with great legs with a resolved look on his face. Although Eliot wasn't usually a cruel man and his mother had taught him to be respectful to a lady, despite the fact that it was Parker and she wasn't what he'd call a lady, the thought of returning back to Boston and leaving the thief to her own devices was very tempting. Parker, on the other hand stared out of the window at the lights of the city, wondering if she would be able to find a building high enough to repel off and silently deciding if she should apologise to her friend. She felt bad that she'd told him that he'd ruined her trip for the second time today. No-one had ever gone to so much trouble for her. But she wasn't the best people person and she hadn't meant to keep hurting the hitter's feelings. _

_It was Eliot who broke the silence first, 'Look I'm sorry, okay.'_

_The thief turned her gaze back to Eliot and nodded. She noticed that his stance had relaxed some towards her and was clearly also feeling a little bit guilty about their exchange. 'S'okay. I'm sorry too.'_

_The hitter pushed a hand through his chestnut locks. 'I only wanted to bring you here because I thought you'd like it better than the others, it's private and partly restored so there's more authenticity to it.'_

'_So I'd get to see more of the old stuff than in the other places, that's okay I guess,' Parker said warmly, 'but you still haven't told me what makes it so special.'_

'_Well,' the man grinned as he dug around his pocket and pulled a dog eared piece of paper, yellow with age, 'you never did let me finish did ya?' He carefully opened it up and smoothed it out on the table top. _

'_Eliot, that's a treasure map,' Parker grinned, her eyes lighting up like beacons._

'_Yes Parker,' the hitter nodded with a small smile, 'Yes it is.'_

_After dinner at the steakhouse, Parker and Eliot had both returned to the suite at the hotel and after Eliot had made disapproving noises as the blonde thief ordered a slew of sweet desserts from room service and raided the in-room snack bar, they settled down on the large over-stuffed couch chatting more about the town of Angel Creek. The young girl had listened with wide eyes as Eliot had explained how he had come to have the treasure map in his possession; it having been passed down to him by his grandmother's grandfather who had been given it to repay the help that had been given by his tribe when an injured man had wandered into Indian Territory and how the town was said to have been the most prosperous town in the old west outside of Dodge City. He explained that there was some sort of mystery surrounding the overall demise of the town, but didn't elaborate further. Parker had been surprised that her friend hadn't gone searching for the treasure sooner, but then there were a lot of things that surprised her about Eliot Spencer these days; she was still trying to get her head around the fact that he could sing amongst other things. As she lay in the darkness, sleep slowly taking her she realised that there was much more to him then met the eye and something deep inside her told her that by weeks end, she would know Eliot almost as well as he knew himself._

**/**

Morning came, bright and warm. Summer in a Mid-South-western state might have been some people's idea of hell, but Parker loved the sunshine. It made her feel happy inside and the heat although it wasn't as hot as she suspected it would be later in the day, felt delicious against her peaches and cream complexion. She dressed with speed, throwing on a pair of khaki coloured linen pants and a white camisole vest, finishing her look by pulling her hair into two braids at either side of her head and kicking her feet into a pair of flip flops. Eliot was waiting for her in the sitting area of the large suite. He was dressed for the warm weather in his usual weathered and worn blue jeans and a loose white cotton shirt, instead of his usual beanie; he'd opted to wear a battered brown Stetson hat. His bags were near the door and he swiftly took her bags from her – as all good southern gentlemen should. After a short stop at a large supermarket to stock up on supplies, and a small portable refrigerator that Eliot strapped to the back of the flat bed and hooked up to the battery, they soon were on their way, enjoying the drive in the hired truck. Eliot had explained that the only building that had been full restored in the ghost town was the Saloon, which had been renovated to a high quality, with running water and electricity and that would be where they would stay for the week. The journey to the town was to take a little over four hours, and just thirty minutes out of the city, the rain had started to fall in an unrelenting downpour.

Tearing her gaze away from the countryside as it flew by at an alarming speed; she turned to watch Eliot, his brow furrowed in deep concentration. It was a look that made him look like he was angry, he wasn't though; he was humming along to a song on the radio that she hadn't quite caught the name of. Though he wasn't letting it show, she knew that he was getting excited, especially as every now and again he'd smile a little to himself and shift in his seat. She had never seen Eliot so perky and it unnerved her a little. He was the one that was meant to be on edge all the time, not her and she didn't like that power shift one little bit.

Eliot could feel Parker watching him intensely, though he didn't want to scare the little thief by making any sudden movements. She seemed to be lost her own thoughts and he wondered if she was still feeling guilty over their spat the previous night. If anything it was he who felt guilty for being a jerk. He knew that he'd had his arm twisted into taking the trip to accompany the blonde woman, but a very small part of him had wanted to offer his company when she first mentioned it to the team. His ego had gotten the better of him and rather than doing the right thing in the first place, he'd kept his mouth shut and figured, like the rest of them that she'd drop the subject, sulk for a few weeks and then steal something to make herself feel better.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Parker slump back down into her seat. He could tell she was bored and desperately wanted to fidget with something or other on the truck's dash, most likely the radio or the air conditioning. Before they'd left Boston, he'd made a couple of conditions as to his presence on this trip. She wasn't to eat any crap in his truck – that only applied while they were actually in his Chevy, the rental didn't count she said, and she wasn't to do anything that considered as distracting, that included fidgeting of any kind, poking him or doing anything that could get either of them hurt. The young woman had agreed begrudgingly, saying that they were 'outlandish'. Eliot didn't think so.

'I think there's a book in the bag back there,' Eliot said, not taking his eyes off the road ahead, 'It's a classic – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - you might like it.'

Quick as a flash, the lithe thief had unbuckled her seatbelt and manoeuvred herself over halfway over the back of the black leather seat and made a grab for Eliot's duffle which had been shoved in a small gap. After a few moments of searching, Parker returned to the front seat with the book, a small ceramic handled knife and bag of popcorn, that Eliot knew hadn't been in there when they'd left the city.

'You read this a lot huh?' Parker noted as she turned the battered book over in her hands. 'I've never read it, ever. This is a great knife,' she made a slashing motion, 'Can I keep it? Want some popcorn?'

Eliot shook his head as she shoved the snack practically in his face, 'Knife please Parker,' He removed his right hand from the wheel and turned it palm up, curling his hand around the weapon that Parker reluctantly returned to its owner. 'You gonna read that book or not?'

Parker shrugged and turned the battered book cover before eventually reading aloud. _'You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of __The Adventures of Tom Sawyer__, but that ain't no matter.'_

Despite the battering the vehicle took from the rain, the rest of the journey was a quiet one, with Parker seemingly losing herself in her borrowed book. It was only when Eliot stopped the truck and opened the door allowing a warm, damp gust of air inside that Parker pulled her attention away from the tome. Through the torrent of rain, she could just make out that they were parked outside of a vast gated enclosure. It was something that reminded her of a prison, more to keep people in than out, but it was obvious that this was to keep people out, rather than in.

'Won't be a minute,' Eliot said, 'Move into the driver's seat and when I give you the signal, drive on through okay?' He pushed the door closed and hurried in front of the truck.

Parker watched as he ducked down momentarily and then re-appeared. There was the sound of metal grating on metal and then Eliot gave her a little wave. She drove forward, inching through the gates, careful not to lose control. She didn't think that Nate would be very happy if she ran Eliot over. Once through, she scooted back into her seat and waited for the hitter to get back into inside. The sound of the heavy metal gate clanking back into its original position made her jump a little, but her interest was peeked. Eliot was keeping secrets, she was sure of it.

She said nothing when he returned to the vehicle, his hair dripping wet from the rain and his white cotton shirt see-through and hugging his muscles in all the right places. He shivered slightly despite the heat and knowing that he'd get a chill, she clambered into the back seat for the second time that day and retrieved a towel which she threw haphazardly at him.

'Thanks darlin,'' he said gratefully as he started to towel himself down, 'Buckle back up, we've got a bit to go yet, but this rain isn't makin' for the best of conditions.'

'_Oh yes,' Parker _thought to herself. Eliot Spencer had a great big fat secret and somehow she figured that Angel Creek and the treasure map was just the start of it all.

**/**

Through the torrent on the windscreen, Eliot saw a copse of green trees in the distance and instinctively turned the vehicle the left. Although no dirt track led up to the old ghost town of Angel Creek, there was a small trail of deep ruts from the old wagon trail that led past an old dilapidated limestone house that had been built on the land in the fifties and through the trees. Just beyond them there was a vast overgrown meadow in which stood the old school house and the way down towards the main street fronts of the town.

Trees surrounded the entire perimeter of the town, flanking some of the old homesteads in shade and stretching up and beyond the town past the old church out towards an old ranch and a few ruins of several old homesteads.

The heavy rain had made the old pasture soggy and Eliot was having a tough time keeping the truck in a straight line. The deep ruts that were hidden under dirt and unruly overgrown creepers were unforgiving as the truck slipped and skidded all over the place. The hitter knew that he had to be careful otherwise he'd end up flipping over. He didn't miss rain like this; it was deadly if you didn't know what you were doing. Eventually, Eliot managed to gain some reasonable control over the vehicle and with only the occasional bump; he followed the tiny trail through the trees. The gap between in between them was just wide enough to get the truck through, but the ground was worse here and he knew that he only had to contend with the terrain for a few more minutes until he made it into the meadow.

Eliot focused all his attention on making sure that he could see where he was going despite the rain that still hammered against the windshield from the vast canopy of greenery overhead, so he didn't see the figure in standing straight ahead of him until it was too late. He hit the brakes hard and rapidly turned the steering wheel trying to his best to avoid hitting what looked to be a young woman dressed in crinolines; it didn't do any good, the back end of the truck spun wildly to the right, taking the rest of the vehicle with it.

As if in ultra slow motion, Parker's petite body lifted momentarily from her seat into the air before slamming into the passenger side door, her head hitting the window with a sickening thud. Eliot watched in horror as her body slumped and her head lolled forward, leaving blood splatter on the glass, but he himself didn't have time to react as the truck finished its spin and crashed into tree, the sickening sound of metal echoing around as his side of the truck bent to shape around the ancient bark. As his own eyes closed and sleep took him, he was sure she heard someone whisper the word Caleb in his ear.


	7. Chapter 5

**So I was kinda thinking that I might leave you hanging a little today, cause I've been helping all the lovely gals over at the CK Vote and Promote and doing some hardcore voting, but I figured that I couldn't be cruel - I'd left you hanging wondering if they live, if they die, whether or not Parker might stab Eliot in the eye (okay, maybe not that but it rhymed, whaddya know, I'm a poet lol.). And also, my plot hamsters of doom have had me working on something new, which I'm not sure I'm ever going to post as it's fluff with chocolate. Oh and Eliot (in his undies) getting a sugar high with Parker. On that note...**

**Anyhoo I'm not gonna leave you hanging, before I shut up rambling I just wanted to say a massive thanks to all the reviewers who are not members on here and comment as guests. I've had lovely reviews from Kay, Carol, Kim and youdude, your comments meant a lot to me. So without further ado (cause my Chilli's burning as I type and the hubster won't shift his bum) I give you... an update. **

**Laura**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

It was dark behind his eyes and even though he knew that he had to open them, Eliot Spencer could have quite easily have slipped back into the warm fuggy sleep he'd just awoken from. His body ached and his head throbbed with a pain that he was sure was going to split his head into two, he felt like he'd been hit by a car, and he would have irony as his rental truck had lost control and smashed into a tree.

Slowly, and against his better judgement, Eliot opened one blue eye followed by the other only to be met by the brilliant glare of daylight that filtered through the trees. He winced as his eyes adjusted and then proceeded to mentally assess his injuries. He could feel his legs and that was a good thing in his opinion, he thought he had bruised his ribs and aside from the trickle of blood that had started to dry on the side of his face from a bump somewhere on his head, he was pretty sure that death would not take him this day.

Eliot shifted in his seat and regretted it instantly as a wave of pain travelled through his core, there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to hurt like hell tomorrow and it would be a couple of days before he started to feel human again. His hand went to unbuckle his seat belt, but found that it already undone and realised that Parker was sat watching him. The hitter had seen her hit the passenger side window with some force and was surprised, yet glad that that she'd already come to, her injured head resting in her hand as she watched him.

'Parker,' Eliot's voice was gruff, his throat dry, 'Are you okay?'

He quickly gave her a once over with his eyes. She was curled up her seat and he was glad to see that nothing was broken and her limbs were working normally. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be wrong with the lithe blonde thief was a tiny cut just above her right eye; the spatter of blood on the window only went to prove that she was a good bleeder.

Parker nodded her blue-green eyes wide with shock. Eliot knew that she was fighting back tears, hell he was too and it wouldn't do either of them any good to sit much longer in a vehicle that almost took their lives.

'Eliot,' she asked in small voice, 'Are you okay? You sounded all funny, like you couldn't catch your breath, so I unbuckled your belt.'

It took a beat or two for him to realise what the thief meant, carefully Eliot moved his hand across his chest, to the suspected bruised ribs and on further inspection discovered that the tightening of the seatbelt across his chest when the car had impacted had saved him from hitting the windshield, but had done the damage to his chest. He'd cracked a couple of them and suspected that he might have punctured a lung, which was why he'd sounded funny to Parker.

'I'll be okay,' he replied giving Parker the best smile he could muster, 'How 'bout you? Are you okay darlin'?'

Parker nodded, 'My head hurts. A lot. But other than that I'm just a bit shaken. What happened?'

'I… erm, I'm not really too sure,' the hitter admitted, ducking his head. 'I thought I… I erm, I thought I saw… you'll think I'm crazy, but I thought I saw you in the… y'know, never mind.'

The young woman never pushed the subject anymore, much to Eliot's relief. He was the one that was meant to be level headed and logical, not seeing or believing in imaginary things and he knew that he couldn't have seen a girl ahead of them, especially not Parker, because she hadn't left the truck. No, he must have hit his head before he lost control of the vehicle and well, he didn't believe in ghosts or astral projection.

'I think we should get out of here,' Eliot told his friend, 'Angel Creek's just across the meadow, once we get to the saloon we can get that cut on your head fixed up. Do you think you can walk?'

'Yeah, your side's totalled, so you'll have to slide over and get out of this side.' Parker smiled at him, before opening the door and letting a blast of damp warm air inside the truck.

The rain had eased some underneath the canopy, but the sounds of the heavy downpour continued all around them and it was clear that they were going to get soaked through. Parker's feet squelched loudly in the muddy mess on the woodland floor as she jumped down from the truck's cab and waited for Eliot to pull himself across and out. Although he seemed to only have minor injuries, he eased his way over and she held out her hand to help him out. He accepted gratefully and after deciding that they would come back for the luggage later they headed out through the trees and into the meadow. The long wet meadow grass made the walk more of a chore than it should have been and the rain seemed to target them from all directions which meant by the time they reached the otherwise of the pasture, both of their tempers were frayed.

It hadn't helped that when they'd reached an old oak tree in the middle of the pasture Parker had made Eliot rest for a few minutes despite his objections, nor had it helped when they'd encountered a Diamond-Back Rattlesnake, and Parker, rather than listening to Eliot's instructions to slowly avoid it so it didn't strike, as quick as a flash had vanished and appeared behind it, grabbed it's tail spun it wildly and released it with such vigour that he'd been surprised it hadn't left the Earth's atmosphere and boldly gone where no snake had ever gone before.

'_Damn it Parker, what the hell?' Eliot growled, his ears hearing a very distinctive thud which told him that the snake had landed, though probably not anywhere soft and probably not alive. _

'_I saw that in a movie once,' Parker grinned back at him, rubbing her hands together. 'I've always wanted to do it cause it looked cool, but it felt kinda… bleurgh.'_

'_That's cause it's frickin' cruel,' the hitter sighed, wondering if she'd do anything else that he deemed crazy and unethical, 'It's a living being not a two dollar prop.' _

'_No… not that! That felt awesome, y'know whizzing it around in the air like you're pitching a ball, but I thought it would have been slimy, I like slimy things, but it was scaly and felt like the skin on an old person.' Parker shuddered; stalking pasted the chestnut-haired man, leaving him dumbfounded. _

'_There's somethin' wrong with you!'_

Despite it all, they eventually made it to the old ramshackle school house that looked like it was just about still holding together. Parker's eyes were wide, and grew even wider as they walked along the main street of Angel Creek. Eliot hadn't been lying when he'd said it had more authenticity. Everywhere around them Eliot noticed that something caught her eyes – old carts, wanted posters, old rocking chairs outside on the veranda of the barber shop, her fidgeting only telling him one thing – that she couldn't wait for the rain to stop and get to the exploring.

'Eliot,' the blonde thief sighed, 'this is like… wow, all this it's frickin' awesome.'

'Yeah it's pretty cool,' Eliot replied, wincing as he grabbed the woman's hand and pulled her towards the board walk on the street front, 'I'm glad you like it. There'll be plenty of time to look around later, but we need to get out of this rain and take a look at that cut on your head. The Saloon's just up here.'

Parker nodded and followed Eliot's lead, her eyes darting from side of the street to the other, a strange feeling settling over her as she progressed further along the street. She couldn't explain it, but she had a feeling that she'd been here before, but that was impossible. The blonde woman stopped abruptly, pulling Eliot back in her direction with some force.

'Damn it Parker, what the hell?' he growled, 'My friggin' ribs are killin' here.'

'Don't you feel that?' she whispered, her blue eyes searching their immediate surrounds before settling on Eliot's wet and weathered face.

'Feel what, the hypothermia settin' in? Sure I do, now come on.' Eliot gave Parker a stern wide eyed look and the thief noted silently that it was the one that Tara had called scary.

'No,' the girl protested, It's like this place has been waiting for something, for me.'

Eliot shook his head, 'There's somethin' wrong with you.'

'So you keep telling me,' Parker sighed, wishing that Eliot would stop saying that to her.

'Look,' Eliot ran a hand over his wet locks, 'if you feel anythin' it's because there's static in the air, there's more of this storm to come and if we don't get inside soon, we stand a good chance of gettin' sick, so come on and we'll talk 'bout this later,' he paused, looking slightly agitated that his words weren't registering. 'Okay.'

'Okay,' Parker agreed and stalked past the hitter, her heart heavy and her mind racing.

Minutes later, the duo pushed through the old weathered oak swing doors and the single window-paned door that had sealed the inside of the Saloon away from the elements. It was dark inside, with minimal daylight from only a select few uncovered windows illuminating the shadows. Eliot led Parker towards the bar and then disappeared into a room at the back leaving her to her own devices. Awestruck, she stared out into the dimly-lit bar room taking in her new surroundings. Dust motes floated on the beam of light that shone down onto an old Player Piano which had been hidden away underneath a staircase, next to the stage that sat underneath the balcony and walkway above. That itself didn't particularly look ornate in the darkness but she should tell that the balusters had been carved into a twisted design and she decided that she would take a closer look when the light was better.

Parker noted that there was only a very slight trace of the damp musty smell she would have associated with a building that had been left for over a hundred years to the mercy of the elements, it wasn't completely masked by the smells of new wood and varnish, and it seemed as though the renovations that Eliot had spoken off had been only weeks or months old. The blonde woman was deciding whether to call out to Eliot, partly to see where he had vanished too and also to ask about the renovation work, when the room was suddenly bathed in warm light from a beautiful crystal chandelier in the centre of the ceiling, it chased away the shadows and allowed the blonde woman to see more of the Saloon's hidden treasures.

A vast mirror took up most of the back bar wall behind the counter, where she noticed there was at least a hundred old bottles, all different shapes and sizes, some filled with different coloured liquids. Parker noted that there were bottles of Jack, Wild Turkey and Jim Beam and other more modern liquors in the mix too. There were several brass beer taps attached to the bar and these had been polished to a high standard, just as the bar top had been shined up too.

With her wet flip flops discarded, Parker weaved in and out of the round tables admiring the chairs, her hand gently skimming the backrests which had been re-upholstered in a deep burgundy colour and complimented the drapes that hung at either side of the stage. It was clear that whoever had renovated the building had done so with love and an attention to detail that was like no other.

'Eliot,' she called out over her shoulder. 'Eliot!' she tried again, this time calling out above her. Her request was met with silence, and she couldn't help but wonder where the man had gone.

Parker wandered over to the swing doors and stared out into the street. Although it was still only early in the afternoon, the sky was almost as black as night. Eliot had been right about a storm coming, but she was still unable to shake the strange feelings she had about Angel Creek. Maybe she had been stupid to mention it to her friend earlier and thinking back it did sound ridiculous to think that the ghost town had been waiting for her. But Parker knew deep down that the dreams and this permanently stuck in a time-warp town were connected somehow, she just didn't know how. It was these thoughts that carried her back to her last dream and how much the man named Caleb Black looked like Eliot. A version of the hitter that was just as sexy as sin as he was and more dangerous, if that was at all possible.

'_Did I really just think that Eliot was as sexy as sin?'_ Parker thought to herself; shocked that that she had ended up on that train of thought, a train that was rapidly starting go on a high speed trip through Crazy Town and to a destination where she had never thought she would ever end up.

It wasn't as if Parker didn't know that Eliot Spencer wasn't an attractive member of the opposite sex, hell she did have eyes and when they had first being brought together by Nathan Ford going on three years ago she couldn't help but look twice at him, his hair had been shorter then but his body was still as honed as it was today, if not less. Time had passed since then and she hadn't even considered Eliot like that until, well until now.

Now, she remembered how his bare chest had looked when he'd fought that Tank guy when they were in Nebraska and how every now and again when he stretched his shirt would sometimes inch up his taut stomach showing just a dusting of hair that seemingly ran up to his navel and lower to, well to there. Parker gulped hard as she pictured Eliot's wet cotton shirt from just a few hours earlier, all transparent from the rain and moulded to his body, how his wet jeans plastered to his well toned legs and buttocks. The tiny theif gulped even harder when she remembered him pushing his wet hair back and imagined him in the shower, soapy and slippery, bubbles running down his skin towards, lower, lower…

Parker's eyes widened and she blushed involuntarily letting out a slow squeak under her breath. Lusting after her team mate like this was not something she wanted to be doing, particularly when they were going to be in such close proximity to each other for the next seven days. Nope, that would be wrong, so very, very wrong; especially when Hardison was waiting for her back home with his heart on his sleeve and the hopes for something more than what she knew she could give him anytime soon.

It was true that she knew that he had been jonesing for her for some months and she also knew that she had sometimes played on it to get things that she wanted. Sophie had told her a number of times to not lead him on, but she couldn't help it. She loved Alec, but she didn't know if that love was the kind romantic love that Sophie had for Nate or if it was more of the kind of love that she'd felt for her brother Nick. One thing was for sure she had never imagined Alec Hardison the way that she was imagining Eliot right now.

'Stupid damn dream,' she muttered quietly, 'stupid damn Caleb Black person, making me think of Eliot that way.'

Parker would have given anything right then and there for a little face to face pep talk from Sophie or even her friend Peggy but instead she decided that a phone call would have to suffice and she retrieved her cell phone from one of her many hiding places and tried to dial Peggy, as she figured that she'd be the most impartial, having never met Eliot. The phone beeped rudely at her to tell her that there was no service and she spun the small smart phone in her hand. She would have to wait until the storm had passed and try making the call later, when she hoped service had improved.

The storm was over the town now, the rain pelting hard against the weathered wooden buildings outside causing the cool air and her already damp clothes to chill her skin even more. Parker shivered and wrapped her arms around herself tightly, hoping that whatever Eliot was doing involved finding something to ensure that they'd be warm and dry until they could return to the wrecked truck for their bags and to inspect the damage.

A feather-light touch on her bare shouldered caused the young woman to turn on her heel, her eyes widened and she was sure that her jaw had fallen open as a million and one things flashed through her mind at breakneck speed, but mostly there was Eliot's voice in the back of her mind, telling her once again that there was something wrong with her and at this moment in time, she was absolutely, positively sure that he was right because there stood in front of her was Caleb Black. And there was no way that dreams could really come true, was there?

**/**

Eliot made his way down the restored wooden steps, his footfalls as ever near silent, he had learnt long ago that footsteps could bring unwanted attention to himself and add danger to a situation that didn't always warrant it and it was something that he practiced at all times. It was clear to him as he ascended the stairs that Parker wouldn't have heard him regardless of his well practiced technique as the blonde girl seemed to be lost in thought, staring absent-mindedly out into the storm-darkened street.

He'd left the thief alone in the bar room while he headed into the back room that had once been an office of some sort to switch the power on and find the first aid kit that was stashed in a small cupboard. Eliot, with his prize in hand had taken the back stairs and headed to the bathroom, where there was a stash of towels and a flow of warm water – a more recent addition to the old ghost town. After cleaning himself of blood and drying off, Eliot had strapped his ribs, deeming that the suspected puncture to his lung wasn't life threatening and would heal by itself and gone in search of some dry clothing for him and Parker, their bags having been left in the back of the truck in their hasty retreat after sideswiping the tree.

There was an ornately carved oak chest in one of the bedrooms, where he found a red corseted satin dress trimmed with black lace that he figured would fit the blonde thief. It reminded Eliot of something that a dancing girl would have worn back in the day, though it was in his opinion slightly classier as it wasn't short in the front like many of the ones that were depicted in the movies or in some of the tourist traps where girls dressed up for reconstructions. That had left just him, there were of course other dresses in the chest, but he didn't fancy the idea of wearing one. A further search for male clothes had led him to the master bedroom where he was rewarded for his effort by finding a pair of black plants and a black shirt, even finding a black Stetson hat and a black kerchief to complete the look. He'd promised Parker an authentic experience and what was more authentic than him dressing as gunslinger opposite her dancing girl. As his hair was still damp he'd left it loose, although it was going a tad frizzy as it dried, but he had a spare elastic band on his wrist for emergencies, and he figured that the hat, although not what he would normally wear to hide his hair faux pas would hide a multitude of sins.

With dress for Parker in hand, he returned to the bathroom and collected the first aid kit and a towel and stowed them inside a porcelain bowl before filling the matching jug with some fresh water to attend to Parker's wound and had eventually come full circle on to the balcony above the bar room. He'd stood for a few moments watching Parker as she zoned out into her own head space, wondering only briefly what she was thinking about. Eliot suspected that she was dwelling on what she'd said on the street front, about the town waiting for her to return either that or she was wondering about the treasure that the town supposedly held – he hoped for the latter but every fibre in his being told him that she wasn't.

With his un-deliberate silence Eliot reached the bar and placed his bounty down on polished wood, careful not to spill the water from the jug as he set that down, water marks where not something he wanted to deal with today, despite the journey and then the accident, there was still a matter of getting a fire started for later and then finding something to eat amongst the minimal food supplies that he knew were in the small kitchen out back. He set the dress that he'd found for Parker on the back of one of the chairs close to him and coughed loudly, trying to gain the woman's attention.

Parker was often skittish and had a tendency to stab first ask questions later, though Eliot knew that she had no knife or well a fork for that matter, it didn't mean that she didn't have something hidden away for those just in cast times – the lock picks that she took on every trip she took with the team were hopefully in her baggage in the back of the truck, but Eliot couldn't be sure and he didn't want to deal in hopefullies and what ifs with her head being any where else than in the present.

'Parker,' he called out softly, moving away from the counter and making his way towards his friend, 'Parker.' Eliot called out again, this time with a little more volume, but his voice fell on deaf ears and not even his cursing as he slammed foot into a table leg brought the girl out her daze. He was almost upon her now, almost within striking distance and he was preparing himself to counter a potential attack and restrain the thief.

Before Eliot could fully place his hand on the blonde woman's skin to tap Parker on the shoulder, she spun around as quick as a flash and looked at him positively agog, eyes as wide as saucers and her jaw slackening and forming a small 'o'. Her name was on the tip of his tongue once more but he couldn't find his voice quick enough before he noticed her eyes roll into the back of her head and her whole body slump backwards and downwards towards the wooden floor. Parker had passed out.

Eliot's reflexes had always been quick and if anything they were well on par with Parker's so it only took a matter of milliseconds to reach out and catch the young woman in his arms and gently pull her into a safe embrace. 'Damn it Parker.' Eliot muttered as he bent his own knees and lowered the two of them down towards the floor.


	8. Chapter 6

**I've got that Friday Feeling – and now I really fancy a Cadbury's Crunchie, wonder if I've got one stashed away from one of the selection boxes left over from Christmas. I'm sorry I've not had chance to reply to any of my PM's and reviews left since last week, my lil boo Eoin's been poorly on an off all week and wouldn't you credit it, now he's broken off from nursery for the Easter Hols, he's been really, really poorly today.**

**Anyhoo, I will reply to them this weekend at some point, but for now I leave you all with a quick thank you for all the reviews that were left. And I hope you enjoy this next instalment.**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

It felt as though hours had passed and she'd had some pretty vivid dreams about held down in a bathtub full of water by an invisible force of some kind, so Parker was surprised when she came around and found herself in someone's strong arms, her back resting against their hard chest, one arm slung tightly across her own chest just under her breasts and the hand of the other holding on to her chin to stop her from chocking her tongue. Immediately she knew that it was Eliot's embrace that she was being held in, she'd felt those arms catch her many times before, though she was surprised that the palm of his hand against her face felt incredibly smooth and soft, not at all what she expected from someone in his line of work. Parker murmured softly but she didn't know why. It just seemed to escape her lips, but it did at least indicate to Eliot that she was now back in the land of the living.

'Parker,' Eliot's voice was hoarse and thick with concern, 'You okay darlin'?'

Parker nodded gently as the hitter slowly removed his grasp on her face and then slid his hand from around her torso. Despite the damp clothes and her chilly skin, the place where his arm had been felt as if it was scorched from some unknown heat source. 'I passed out didn't I?' It was more of a statement than a question.

Eliot scooted backwards away from her and quickly got to his feet and again Parker felt that strange warmth residing on her. 'Yup,' he offered his hand out and she accepted gratefully, 'You must have it hurt your head worse than we thought. You should have said something if you felt ill.'

Parker averted her eyes and looked anywhere else but Eliot's face. He was angry; she knew he was by the way his body language screamed at her even though his voice was doing quite the opposite. She also suspected he felt a little guilty because he was the one who had been driving and though she also knew that he wouldn't admit it he probably felt that he should have made more than sure that everything was okay with her. In truth, Parker's head _had_ felt fine, she hadn't felt in the least bit sick or dizzy or any of the things that your supposed to feel when your heads been smashed into something hard and your brain squishes against your skull. She hadn't lied to him when she said that she was fine, but now here she was standing in front of her friend letting him believe what he wanted to believe.

It wasn't like she could come right out and say _'I didn't faint because of the car accident, I fainted because you look like the dead gunslinger I've been dreaming about, oh and by the way he makes me imagine you naked.' _And she felt bad about it.

'Sorry,' she whispered, still not meeting his gaze, 'I… um, I didn't want to worry you.'

'Damnit Parker.' Eliot threw his hands in the air with an exasperated sigh and turned on his heels. Parker watched as he stalked back towards the bar, yanking the black hat off his head and tossing it on the wooden counter as he slipped behind it, his hands roughly pushing his hair off his face, quickly working to tie it back into a small pony tail at the base of his neck and then without even so much as pause grabbing the bottle of Jack and taking a long swig. She quickly followed and took a seat opposite him.

'I feel fine now,' she smiled brightly, hoping that some reassurance would placate him, 'I'm just cold.'

'Drink this,' Eliot growled, half slamming a glass of the amber-coloured liquid down onto the bar top in front of her and then observing her questioning raise eyebrow 'It'll warm you up. I want to take a look at that cut and then you can get changed into something dry.'

Parker stared at the glass with distaste, alcohol wasn't her speed. The thief rarely drank and when she did it was usually the odd glass of wine, cocktail or a small glass of beer here and there. She liked to have a clear head therefore preferred to drink soda or water lest she lose control. However, already seeing that Eliot was not in the mood to argue, she quickly obliged the hitters request and downed the whisky in one. The strong liquid burned her throat and she stifled a small cough and hoped that she wasn't going to be reacquainted with the alcohol any time in the next thirty minutes otherwise Eliot would get even pissier than he already was. How Nate drank this all the time she didn't know, it was simply awful and tasted like paint stripper, not that she'd ever drank it, well except for that one time for a dare. The man must have an oesophagus of cast iron and a constitution to match she reasoned silently as Eliot gave a small nod of approval. She could already feel the whisky coursing through her veins, travelling through her blood stream from her stomach outwards, up to her neck and down to the tips of her toes, despite her distaste for it, it certainly was warming her up as Eliot had said it would.

'Okay, so that's gone, what now?' the thief asked as she rubbed her hands over her bare arms to try and warm them.

'Now I clean that wound,' Eliot smiled gently, his body language not screaming at the girl as much now she'd done as he asked, which was a good thing because he was now stood directly in front of Parker, the first aid kit in one hand and a wash cloth in the other. 'Parker this might smart a little, so I'm sorry in advance okay?'

She nodded and let Eliot get on with whatever he needed to do. The silence between them was amicable and quite comfortable although there was an occasional growl from the chestnut-haired man and a few winces from her as the hitter cleaned her cut with some rubbing alcohol and wiped as much of the dirt and blood streaks from her forehead and face with a washcloth; his hands working deftly and gently. After a few minutes, Eliot finished his task and stepped back to admire his work, his eyes locking with her own. Parker gulped and felt a flush creeping along her the nape of her neck.

The resemblance between Eliot and her dream man, Caleb Black was definitely uncanny and Parker had to wonder if he was some distant relative. Because those eyes that her friend looked at her with were exactly the ones from her dream, there was no question about it and although she'd never actually taken much interest in looking properly at Eliot's eyes she was now noticing them anew. Parker suspected that only some far off lagoon was bluer than his eyes and set against his tanned skin, they were so intense that if they were lasers she was sure that they'd burn her to the bone.

'Should heal in a coupla days,' Eliot smiled, relinquishing the first aid kit and grabbing a towel to wipe his hands. 'You've probably got a mild concussion so if ya feel dizzy or sick again you gotta let me know.'

Parker nodded before allowing her gaze to travel from his face so she should fully take his attire. Eliot stood before her wearing a near enough the same exact outfit that Caleb Black had worn in her dreams, kerchief, shirt and pants, and although they looked as if they could be brand new, straight off the rack at a costume shop or similar the little blond thief was positive that they were genuine and had been sourced from somewhere within the saloon. The only exceptions to the rule, Parker noted were that the hat had been discarded in favour of tying up his hair, his feet were bare and well, the black pants looked a tad snug and emphasised things that weren't normally emphasised in modern pants - well unless they were made of leather, but that was a train of thought for another time.

'Oh! Here!' Eliot said as he turned around momentarily, giving Parker a good view of his derriere - that too was accentuated.

'Squeeeeeee,' the thief thought to herself, desperately willing Eliot not to notice that she was staring, he had eyes in the back of his head she was sure.

'I found a dress upstairs,' Eliot smiled as he turned around, the red and black laced garment in his arms, 'I'm guessin' it's about your size… they didn't have size guides a hundred years ago.'

'So they are genuine then,' Parker mused loudly, ignoring the confused look that the man threw at her as he handed her the dress. Now in her own hands, the red material felt silky and almost sensuous against her skin. Parker knew it wasn't silk though, most likely it was satin or sateen but it still felt exquisite. And most importantly it was dry. 'Thanks,' she added.

Eliot nodded caring not to ask her what she meant by her comment and Parker was thankful for that, she knew that it would lead to words tumbling from her mouth that would make things very awkward indeed. Tact was something that Parker didn't particularly have a good working knowledge of and she knew that it was a bug-bear amongst the rest of the team, especially when she said the wrong thing to a client or doing worse to a mark.

'There's a bathroom upstairs if you wanna freshen up,' Eliot motioned behind him with a slight nod of his head, 'there's runnin' hot water and if you look in the cabinet you'll find some toiletries.'

Parker was thankful for that information, and she gave the hitter a grateful smile. Carefully, and with feline grace, the thief removed herself from her stool and swiftly moved towards the staircase, pausing only momentarily to sneak a quick glance over her shoulder to where Eliot was now busying himself with clearing away the wash cloth and first aid kit. She watched silently for a second or two before making her ascent up the stairs, she couldn't quite explain why but a bubble of panic slowly but steadily because to rise inside of her as she moved away from the hitter's immediate vicinity and along the upper floor. Parker was pretty sure that Sophie would have called this separation anxiety – though why she was feeling like this she didn't know, because she could hear Eliot clattering around downstairs and she knew he wouldn't be going anywhere soon… or at least she hoped against all hopes that he wasn't.

/

Eliot finished gathering the remaining items from the bar and carried them into the little office at the back of the saloon, returning the first aid kit to where he'd found it earlier and then with his arms again full with the soiled towels, jug and bowl, he made his way down a small hall way towards the kitchen. The hitter set them on a stool against the wall making a mental note to return them to the bathroom later. The room itself was only around three by four meters and could easily be crossed from one side to the other by two large strides and like the rest of the saloon, the kitchen had been refurbished with as many of the original features as possible from the small cast iron cook stove that had been purged of decades of dirt and grime now stood polished and ready to be used. The dresser that held the mismatched crockery of porcelain and cooking pots of various sizes had miraculously survived the Oklahoma weather systems that had been thrown at Angel Creek, and the kitchen table that been sourced from an antiques auction to replace the old Oakwood one that had succumbed to rot. Everything else was just a lot cleaner and shinier than it once had been and the only new, modern additions to the cramped room were a modestly sized refrigerator and icebox to temporarily replace the need for a spring house, new cutlery, chopping board and the block of knives that sat proudly on the little counter top that was attached to a sink that had been fitted around the time as the upstairs plumbing. In the corner nearest the stove, there was a pile of cut logs and kindling which was where Eliot made his way to, intending to use them to not only light the stove but also to start a fire in the bar, despite the days residual heat and the humidity from the storm, the evenings in Oklahoma could be cool and seeing as both he and Parker had received a soaking the last thing he wanted was to end up running a fever. However the fires, unlike the electricity, the heat exchanger and the feed to the city water supply, had to be done the old fashioned way and man did invent the fire, or at least some say.

Eliot set to work, carefully arranging the logs and loose tinder inside the stove to give maximum efficiency so that they burnt well enough to be able to cook on the stove top. He struck a couple of matches and threw them inside too, closing the heavy door and adjusting the flue so that he wasn't over come with smoke. When then flames slowly began licking against the gnarled wood and the fire had taken, he sat back on his heels, momentarily mesmerised by the flames and letting himself relax ever so slightly.

It had been a strange day to say the least and he would have given anything to be able to go pound his fists against a punch bag to work off the tension that was causing his back and shoulders to knot. He was especially surprised at how Parker had been on the drive out to the ghost town, she had been subdued and quiet and so un-Parker-like that it was unnerving but not as unnerving as what he'd seen before he lost control of the truck. He was a rational man and didn't believe in the paranormal, well perhaps God cause he'd been in some very sticky situations in his life that he shouldn't have walked away from and he definitely believed in extra-terrestrials - but that was only because he'd been inside Area Fifty-Two and had seen things that couldn't have been made by the government or the craziest of scientists; but ghosts, spirits and otherworldly beings – that was a big fat hell no. Although even he was having a hard time convincing himself that what he'd seen was a trick of his eyes, a mirage or a Fata Morgana and he knew that Parker wasn't some sort of witch or a yogi, so she couldn't have astral projected herself out of the car; even if she had that skill he still couldn't explain the dress or how the woman looked like a younger version of the thief. It had crossed his mind that it had all been a dream and that he had in fact hit his head before the truck hit the thick truck of the tree, but as Eliot had played back the days events in his mind over and over several times he knew it wasn't and what he'd seen was real. And he knew he hadn't imagined the breathy ethereal voice that whispered another mans name in his ears. What the hell was a Caleb anyway?

The hitter pushed himself to his feet, moving his neck from side to side, loud cracking sounds echoed around him as the vertebrae in his spine released themselves and he set to work gathering more wood to make a fire in the bar room, placing several logs and a whole lot of kindling into a wicker basket along with the box of matches. Before he knew it he'd pondered his way back into the front of the saloon and had part made a fire in the hearth before he was aware of what he was doing. Eliot had been thinking about what Parker had said outside, that she felt as if the town were waiting for her in some way. To the others, Parker's words would have been met with some ridicule and lot of reassurance that everything was fine, he supposed that he'd fobbed the girl off too, telling her that it was the charge in the air from the storm because he didn't want to admit that she was right; he'd felt it too and not just today. He'd felt it when he'd first visited Angel Creek and every time he'd been here since it was there, hanging over him like the Sword of Damocles, watching, waiting and anticipating for something or someone to come and unleash it. It seemed to have become stronger this visit, and he didn't know why he was letting it bother him as much as it was; it never particularly had done before and he wasn't stupid enough not to know that a place like Angel Creek wasn't going to have a portentous atmosphere to it. As a general rule, the things he'd done in his past didn't allow him to be paranoid over little things, but he had a funny feeling that he was going to be looking over his shoulder while he was here. But for what, he didn't know.

Eliot let out a deep breath and lit the fire and waited for it to take, allowing the heat of the flames to wash over his body. The fire light illuminated the saloon and gave the vast room a cosier ambiance than it had in the daylight, softening the harsh shadows that the light from the chandelier couldn't reach and accentuating the ornately carved panels of the fireplace. In his opinion this was the best feature of the whole establishment and he loved sitting by it, reading one of his books late into the night.

Apart from the strangeness of the accident and his musings on both he and Parker being hyper aware of the atmosphere of the town, the other thing that troubled the hitter more than either of these things was the fact that as soon as his blonde companion came down from getting cleaned up, she was going to start asking questions. Eliot had already noticed the suspicious glances that she'd given him earlier that day and in fairness, the hitter reasoned she deserved some answers.

When he'd explained to her how he knew about Angel Creek, he hadn't _technically_ lied to her by saying that his grandmother had told him about the town – she had done and he while he had told the truth about there being a couple of gun fights in the town, but he had failed to tell her about the Scarlet Fever outbreak that claimed the lives of many and how strange fires that broke out throughout the town afterwards had resulted a mass exodus of the town. A lot of townsfolk left to escape their losses and the rest left from fear. He had briefly explained to her about how he came to have the map in his possession although he had purposely left out the parts about how the town had been bequeathed to him by his grandmother's brother, Uncle Randy who had bought the land in the fifties for pennies after hearing stories from his father. For a usually honest man, Eliot was drowning in a vat of deceit, which when added to his other secrets would be his ultimate downfall if he wasn't careful, especially with Nate's crusade to systematically destroy Damien Moreau from the inside out.

_I'm gonna have to come right out and say it, _Eliot told himself sternly as he ran his hands through his now dry hair of chestnut brown pushing it away from his face and tying into place with a an elastic band he kept on his wrist. _I'll have to come out and tell her that I've lied to her and let her down like every other person she's ever trusted. _

And with that thought, Eliot felt his heart break a little for his friend.


	9. Chapter 7

**Hello all - I'm so so so very sorry that I've not updated this for about three weeks or so it's been all go around here. I had my 4 year old off for Easter Hols for a fortnight, the hubster was also off for a week and then he ended up doing his back in and being on sick from work for a couple of days. I got a really bad bout of tonsillitis and then it came back after a week of being on anti-biotics. Meladdy went back to nursery last week so I was finally able to write without having interruptions of 'Mammy can I have/I want/Oww my foot hurt' and my favourite - 'It's bleeding.' Then I got the tonsillitis back ****and had a bad reaction to the second course of the bloody things. So with all this going on I didn't have much inspiration going on and I used my back-up chapters a few weeks back. **

**After having a kick up the bum from Valawenel I've finally rectified the whole situation and bring to you a new chapter. I know, don't faint. You are not hallucinating. This is not a test!  
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**Thanks so much for the reviews and the pm's I've had asking whether I'd forgotten about this - I couldn't forget about this, it's the cause of many a sleepless night when I'm working out plot kinks.  
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**Oooooo also after my last update I made a cover for this - a joint venture in Photoshop and Paint Shop. It's the plot bunnies fault. ;)  
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**Anyhoo, on with the show.**

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**Chapter 7**

It had been a good hour or so since Parker had left the hitter to his own devices downstairs, in order to freshen up. She had been surprised to find a full sized cast iron claw foot bath tub in the bathroom, but she immediately filled it to the top with hot water, adding a generous amount of the Jasmine scented bath oil that she had procured from the cabinet that Eliot had mentioned to the water before sinking into the depths. The heat felt delicious against her chilled skin as it warmed her from the inside out and purged her of all the days grime. Despite her passing out earlier, Eliot hadn't mentioned anything to her about not getting in the tub, so she had assumed that she was fine to do so and she was so glad that she did because it had been heavenly, although it was only when she was submerged and she was relaxed that she realised that perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas.

Unsure if the water was a little too hot, if it was the bang on her head or if it was the liquor that was now affecting her, Parker found herself drifting in and out of sleep, dreaming a little now and then, but these snippets seemed to blur the lines of reality with those of dream when she saw Caleb Black cockily leant up against the door jamb, his arms folded over his broad muscular chest watching her bathe, his intense blue eyes taking in her every feature. It had momentarily occurred to her that she had closed the bathroom door to give her some privacy, but now it was open behind him, allowing her to see out into the Saloon. In her foggy haze, she wondered if it really was Caleb stood there or if Eliot was some sort of secret peeping-tom. If he was, well he wasn't a very good one which surprised her because Eliot was just stealthy as she was. Even more peculiar than the man stood in the doorway was that she could hear several things simultaneously. She could hear a lot of movement downstairs, sounds of clattering pots and pans, the clattering of glasses and bottles, muffled chattering, laughter and the sounds of the Player Piano combined with the sounds of the storm outside. Parker reasoned that Eliot must have found a radio somewhere and was listening to a local radio station, although even she couldn't figure out how he could hear it with the ruckus going on.

What was even stranger was that despite all the noise that was seemingly all around her, she could quite clearly pick out the sounds of both Caleb _and_ Eliot's voices as they whispered in her ears at almost the same time.

'_Emmeline,' _Caleb's husky drawl was seductive and hot against ear made her goose-pimply in spite of the warmth of the water, 'Emme.'

'_Parker,' _Eliot's familiar voice seemed to have more of an affect on her body than that of Caleb's. It sent shock waves down her spine to the tips of her toes and settled in the depths of her belly. _'Parker… damn it Parker.'_

The final time she drifted between sleep and awake, everything seemed to come together like a movie playing out before her. Caleb or maybe it was really was Eliot, at this point she wasn't sure, sat on the side of the tub, whispering her name, his hand gently stroking her face, brushing his thumb across her lips, before he eventually bent down lower so he could crush his lips across her own, it lasted only a second or two but it was enough to elevate her blood pressure and make her lightheaded and breathless. And then as quickly as it all had began, the haze in her head cleared and she was alert and lucid, and aware that the bathwater had almost gone cold.

Parker washed quickly and got out of the tub. She wrapped a large fluffy towel around her, collected her damp clothes and the red dress and exited the bathroom in search of somewhere to change. Padding barefoot across the landing, she noticed that downstairs was bathed in the warm glow of firelight and that the delicious smells of garlic and tomatoes wafted up from somewhere where only Eliot could be. She could only assume that he had sourced some rations from somewhere and was cooking up a storm for dinner, but from where he'd sourced them she didn't know. It made her stomach growl with an unrelenting hunger and it made her make her mind up about finding an empty bedroom to claim as her own all that much easier.

The one she chose seemed familiar to her somehow, with its dark mahogany four poster bed and matching dresser, but while she while she couldn't quite put her finger on why it did so it also it made her think of home, a home that she'd never had, although she was briefly saddened by that thought she shook it off as quickly as it came. The room wasn't huge by modern standards and had a box room feel to it compared to the apartment or her compound back in Boston with very little room at either side of the bed, but it seemed to be the master bedroom judging by the ornate carvings in the wood on the posts of the bed. Parker perched on the edge of the mattress, testing the softness of it by bouncing gently. It seemed comfortable enough and she was sure that she would have a decent nights sleep on it, especially as she had had worse in the past, sleeping on the streets and bunking down in places where rats could take a bite out of you they so pleased.

Parker set about changing, taking little time and effort to get into the red dress. The satin slithered down her skin and seemed to cling to her, giving her voluptuous curves that she never knew existed and her many years practice of getting in and out of awkward positions with ropes put her in good stead as she reached her arms behind her back and deftly tied the laces of the corset, tightly but not too tight that she couldn't breathe. As she dried her tousled blonde hair with her towel, Parker made a mental note to ask Eliot how he knew so much about the inner workings of the Saloon, unless he had been here before there was no way that he could have known about the electrics, the running water or now that she thought about it or rather smelt it, a food supply especially as she was under the assumption that the only food they had was what they had purchased earlier in the day and unless Eliot had braved the rain again, which was doubtful, it was still in the smashed up truck.

However, she knew she shouldn't have been surprised that he knew more than he'd already shared with her and that was why she hadn't quizzed him about these things yet, partly because she'd been stunned by the Caleb-a-like he'd become and partly because this trip had slowly turned into an even bigger treasure finding expedition than she'd expected. In the three years that she'd known the hitter, she doubted that the number of personal snippets that Eliot had let slip about himself could be counted on one hand, yet already in the space of forty-eight hours she had learnt more about her friend than she could have imagined and at the same time, she had learnt a few things about herself too.

Parker paused wondering if she should perhaps mention the bizarre experience she'd had while she was in the tub, and then thought better of it. Eliot would probably fuss over her for the rest of the night and grouch around the place banging and crashing things as he generally tended to do when he was in a bad mood or worse, he'd brood in silence. She suppressed a shiver; there was nothing worse than Eliot when he brooded and by her reckoning, he was downstairs already doing just that.

When she eventually came back down into the bar, Parker was overwhelmed by the sticky, sickly heat of the fire but she revealed in the warmth all the same. She had collected Eliot's damp clothing from one of the bedrooms and along with hers, she set about hanging them over the backs of chairs in order to let them dry evenly. There was no immediate sign of the hitter and it took her a little while to find him in the small maze of rooms at the back of the bar room. She found him eventually, with his back to the open kitchen door, his shoulders tense and his back rigid as he stirred something on the cook stove. Normally when he cooked, Eliot tried not be angry or tense as he said that these feelings came out in ones cooking and made the food taste bad, Parker didn't believe this though because she knew cooking was way of de-stressing and also because everything he made tasted fantastic, even if he'd just fixed a bowl of cereal for her, maybe that was going too far because cereal was just cereal but she was sure that it was all in the way that he prepared it, using warmed milk instead of pouring out of the carton and straight from the fridge.

'Huh hum,' Parker cleared her throat in an effort to get the hitters attention without just creeping up on him, like she would have done at home.

Eliot spun around, a wooden spoon covering in sauce in his hand and a guilty look on his face that was soon replaced by wide eyes as he took in the thief's new look, especially how the dress emphasised her gymnastically-honed body and gave her curves in the right places.

'Whatcha making?' she smiled as she moved carefully into the small kitchen and pulled herself onto the Oak table in the centre of the room.

'Nothing special tonight darlin',' Eliot turned back to his pot stirring, 'just spaghetti and sauce.'

Parker nodded, her stomach growling in appreciation. 'Where'd the food come from? You haven't been back to the truck so…'

The hitter busied himself collecting two plates and a large porcelain serving dish from the dresser, setting them down not far away from where she sat on the table top. 'No, I… I er…' he paused to push an imaginary wisp of hair from his eyes, 'they're from the store cupboard supplies I keep here for emergencies.'

'I knew you knew too much about this place,' the blonde thief mused quite enjoying the awkwardness that her friend was feeling, but just a little, 'what else have you been hiding Sparky?'

'Food first,' Eliot growled, 'then we'll talk.'

**_/_**

With their plates empty and their bellies full, Eliot and Parker shared the job of cleaning up the kitchen between them. The blonde thief washed and the hitter dried and replaced the dry dishes away in their respective places before returning to the roaring fire and the stillness of the bar room. Eliot slipped behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of Jack and a couple of glasses, while Parker settled down beside the fire, pulling her knees up to her chest as she snuggled into an upholstered chair next to the fire. The hitter pulled up a table and took the seat opposite her before juggling the glasses in his hand and filling them up with the dark coloured liquor. Eliot passed the young woman a glass and settled back in to his chair and watched as Parker wrinkled her nose up as she took a small sip. He knew all too well that Parker didn't drink often and when she did, she didn't drink the hard stuff, but the events of the day demanded something stronger than tap water or coffee.

'Urggh,' Parker muttered to no-one in particular as she set her glass down on the table. 'How do you guys drink this stuff on a daily basis?'

Eliot smirked but said nothing as he downed his drink in one and quickly filled the glass back up. Another one for Dutch courage and then he knew he was going to have to start with the explaining, although he sensed that Parker already had figured a good amount out already and he didn't think that she'd be too upset with him or at least that's what he was secretly hoping after her passing comment in the kitchen.

'So c'mon then,' the lithe thief goaded the hitter, 'are you going to explain about how you know so much about this place or are you gonna leave me in the dark? I can't promise I won't get mad, but I can promise I won't stab you!'

The hitter shifted in his seat, took a sip from his refilled glass and gazed upon his friend. He was momentarily taken aback by how pretty she looked in her red dress, the corset doing all manner of wonderful things to her bosom and her blonde hair falling in soft waves against her peaches and cream complexion as she sat in the orange-coloured glow of the fire patiently waiting for him to speak. In the three years he'd known Parker, he had only ever lusted after her a couple of times, once when he realised how flexible and supple she was when it came to pulling off all manner of moves that only a gymnast could do which had made him wonder about all the possible Kama Sutra positions that could be achieved in the bedroom and the second time, was the first time he'd seen her in one of Sophie's skin tight dresses and Jimmy Choo heels with legs that went on forever. He had never acted on these feelings because he knew Hardison was sweet on the thief and he would never do anything deliberately to jeopardise his friendship with him as he was closer to him than he was his own brother despite the fact that he was a Star Trek loving, techno-geek, but looking at Parker right now, he felt a stirring inside of him that he hadn't felt in a long time and he knew if he acted on it then it wasn't going to change the dynamics of things for their little family of five.

'What do ya wanna know darlin'?' Eliot finally spoke finally averting his gaze away from the blonde woman and staring instead at the darkness outside the windows.

'Well I wanna know everything,' Parker stated matter of factly, 'like why is there an electric fence around this place, why you knew about the power and the water and the food and whatever else you've not told me about. You've been here before, lots of times I guess.'

'Well I've not exactly been completely up front with the truth,' the hitter started, 'what I told you about this place last night were just… cliff notes I guess.'

Parker raised and eyebrow in his direction and gave off a vibe that told him to tell her something she didn't know.

'How I came to know about the treasure, well that was true… the map did end up in my great grandfather's hands after helpin' an injured man. Y'know that sayin', 'I own this town,' well I really do own this town. My great uncle Randy, well he was the one who found this place and bought it for a few thousand bucks back in the fifties from a guy who still lived here. He left it to me in his will.'

Eliot topped up his and Parker's glasses, noting that for someone who didn't tend to drink she was doing her fair share of getting through the bottle of JD. It did cross his mind briefly to tell her not to have any more given that she had a minor head injury and had passed out, but she seemed to be alert and lucid and he knew that he would be keeping an eye on her throughout the night.

'I've been restoring it for the past five or six years. I come here when things get too hot, that's why I've got the fence up and other security measures in place too. Cell phone blockers, GPS blockers and lots of tech that I have no idea about. I just paid for someone to design it and write me the instructions down. '

'Ohhh,' Parker gasped dramatically, as she pointed at him. 'You saw other hackers before Hardison!'

The hitter ducked his head to a side, a small grin on his face. He watched as the woman's own face lit up with a smile to match his.

'It's okay,' she lowered her voice to a whisper, although it wasn't necessary as they were the only two in the room, 'I won't tell I saw other hackers and a hitter too.' Parker grinned her all knowing, all seeing Grinch-like smile.

Eliot couldn't help but chuckle at her statement, especially as she made it sound like these previous encounters were illicit love affairs. He, like Parker, knew that each one of them, except Nate and probably Hardison, obviously would have had to have dealt with someone else in each others profession on occasion to get a job done, although Sophie seemed to be the only one to have vocalised this in the past and they all knew that she still did little things on the side with Tara in their supposed down time. Hell, he'd done a job with Quinn a few months back but he wasn't going to broadcast that fact in light of what happened in LA and he didn't actually mind the guy too much, in a different life, they would have been the greatest of friends.

'I'm wounded.' Eliot said finally, 'I have all that stuff to keep me from being found. This place is my safe haven. Other than you and my sister no one knows about this place. Each time I come out her, I check in with her, she's under instructions that if she doesn't hear back from me after a month of me coming out here, then I'm probably not coming back at all. She knows what to do in that event.'

'Wait, I remember now. The lawyers office in Providence, it was Holbeck, Spencer and Lovitz. That's the errand you had run. Right?'

He nodded. 'Yeah, Jenny, she's a sweetheart but me and her husband, we don't get on well. He took my daddy's side of things see… and well he doesn't like me spending too much time with their boy, thinks I'm a bad influence…'

It occurred to him then that Parker had no idea about his and his daddy's issues and that he may have let more than he was willing to tell her slip. If she picked up on anything strange, she didn't say, maybe it was the fact that she was now on her third glass of liquor, or that she just wasn't interested in what he'd just told her as much as finding out what else he hadn't told her about this trip.

'Hmmmm, the part I don't get,' Parker mused loudly, 'is why people left all this behind, it's like aliens abducted everyone – did aliens abduct them? That would explain the weirdness.'

'No Parker, no aliens.' Eliot placed his empty glass on the table top, pushed himself up out of the chair and made his way towards the bar, where he procured another bottle of liquor, this time a bottle of Jim Bean. 'There was an outbreak of Scarlett Fever and many people died, they're all buried up on the hill, near the church. There was a lot of hurt afterwards and some townsfolk believed the town to be cursed, there were strange incidents afterwards, fires broke out throughout the town, people reported hearing screams and cryin', said they'd seen the devil himself walkin' through the town at night. The pastor had passed and they had no-one to turn to so they just left to escape it all, packed up what they could fit in their wagons and left town, I guess what was left behind belonged to those who had died.'

'That's so… so sad.' Parker said as she pulled her legs underneath her. 'All that death, it must have been awful. I know what it's like to have to leave everything you've ever known behind. I got put in to foster care not long after my brother died and I remember crying myself to sleep for the longest time, wishing I could just go home and snuggle up with his blanky.'

Eliot was stunned by the thief's out pour of compassion towards the situation of the late townsfolk and the revelation that she herself had let something else slip about her own turbulent past. Parker's past was a far cry from his own and it was something that she didn't speak about often, if at all. It was only that while in Serbia when she'd been fiercely intent on freeing a group of orphans who were been used as pawns by an arms dealer that Eliot realised just how bad a childhood the petite thief had had and it was certainly a far cry from his own, modest and settled upbringing. Hell, everyone was shocked when the revelation about her brother and his death came to light – they'd been feeling out a fake psychic, Dalton Reed, doing re-con at one of his shows when he'd cold read her. He hadn't wanted to maim anyone as badly as he wanted to maim him that day, and he'd been deadly serious when he told her he could kill him as per her request – it would have been a good way to show his pseudo sister and their little make-shift family how much he'd come to care for them, that he was willing to kill for her, for them all.

'I'm sorry to hear that sweetheart,' the hitter said solemnly, not else what to do or say, even though there was part of him that wanted to pull her into his arms and take away the hurt that she'd felt, the way he'd done to Jenny when she'd broken up with many a boyfriend. Jenny had always said that his embrace was magical and could bring about world peace if it was bottled and sold. 'I can't imagine havin' to go through anythin' like that.'

'S' okay,' Parker whispered thickly, 'S' not your fault, it's not even mine, I realise that now.'

The lithe blonde seemed to perk up a little as Eliot made his way back to the fire side with the bottle of liquor. He settled back down in his seat and offered her the bottle. 'I'm sorry that I didn't tell you the whole story about this place last night. I was been a jerk and you and I both know I can be an utter ass. I just figured if I told you just enough you'd come and by the time you found out the everything else, we'd have found this treasure you'd be on a high and it wouldn't matter.'

'Well I am pretty pissed off with you Eliot. I thought we trusted each other, maybe a little more than we trust the others. And I can't deny that I'm a little hurt that you've lied to me,' Parker said pointedly, 'but I'm kinda glad that you did.'

Eliot felt his heart lift a little. He'd spent a fair amount of his time this evening preoccupied with thoughts of Parker's reaction to his confession. The last thing he'd wanted was to hurt her feelings or make her angry enough to run off into the wilderness surrounding them, storm or no storm, and end up God only knew where, but the fact that she was somewhat happy that he'd held back from her was testament that she still trusted him enough to watch his back and vice versa and that meant a lot to him.

'This place,' Parker continued, 'this town is amazing. It sounds crazy but it feels like home to me. So, tomorrow when we've checked out the damage to the truck, you're gonna show me around and give me the full ghost town experience even if that means you have to get up on that stage and do a dance like the Can-Can. You will make this up to me Sparky.'

The hitter nodded, a small smile forming on his lips. 'I aint dancin' no Can-Can.'

'Then you have to go to every play that Sophie does from now on – alone!' Parker laughed, warmly, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief, clearly she was plotting other ways of revenge.

Horrified at the thought of having to sit through the torture that was far worse than he had ever experienced at the hands of any militant groups or dictators that his path had crossed with in the past that was Sophie's attempts at acting on stage, he held his hands up in defeat and laughed. 'Okay, okay. You win, anything but that.'

'All right then it's settled,' the thief smirked, 'now what are we going to do with the rest of the night. Are you going to divulge anymore of your secrets? I promise I won't tell.'

'Not tonight darlin', Eliot grabbed the bottle of liquor and took a long swig, before placing it back on to the table top and using his free hand to dig around on the upholstered chair behind him before thrusting a fresh deck of cards towards the young thief, 'we've done enough maudlin. How about we play a coupla hands o' Poker and see whether we can't change that mind of yours.'

'Oh you're so going to lose.' Parker laughed as she removed the cards from the packet and shuffled them in such a way that one would think she was a dealer in Vegas. 'Did I ever tell you about the time that I pulled a heist at Caesars Palace?'

'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.' Eliot countered, lifting the bottle in the blonde's direction. 'Everyone knows that.'

'Not tonight Eliot,' she Grinch-smiled again, 'but what what happens in Angel Creek, stays in Angel Creek.'


	10. Chapter 8

**One of a triple this week. And the start of twists to come. Thanks for all the reviews since Friday's update. I do appreciate all your feedback, it really makes my day checking in and seeing how lovely you all are.  
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**Anyhoo, dedicated to the lovely Carol who's birthday it is today. Happy Birthday Lovely, hope you have a great day x**

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**Chapter 8**

John McRory's, the small neighbour hood bar below the Leverage Associates and Consulting was near enough packed to the rafters, when Alec Hardison stepped out of a Yellow Cab and on to the sidewalk outside with an over-stuffed holdall and a grin on his face that could have single-handedly lit the Boston skyline up with the minimum of effort. He paid the cab driver and unusually for him, gave him a substantially large tip, partly because he had taken the quickest route from the airport and also because he asked no questions as to the large collection of collectable World of Warcraft merchandise that included replica weapons and items that wouldn't have looked too out of place in a medieval dungeon. The driver hadn't spoken much either, which was just the way he liked his cab rides. Hearing four other voices in your head on a daily basis made one make the most of the peace and quiet, especially when one of those voices was always growling at him. His vacation trip to Los Angeles and the week long BlitzCon convention in which he hung out with some of his online gaming buddies, played a couple of RPG's, competed and won in a couple of tournaments and got to attend some rocking parties had been fun, but there definitely was no place like home, especially when home was with three people who he considered to be a mother, father and an older brother and a petite blonde girl who he would love to call his girlfriend. He had missed Parker like a desert misses the rain and had spent the flight cross country imagining lifting her into his arms and hugging the life out of her, her blue eyes sparkling and her soft pink lips which curved into a smile that told him without words that she'd missed him too. A week without the blonde thief was a week too long.

Hardison hurried inside the apartment block with his luggage and headed straight to Nate's and the place they used for an office. He pushed open the door and burst full force inside, still wearing a smile only to be greeted with silence. The apartment was empty, save for a heap of suitcases that had been haphazardly pushed up against the low stud wall that divided the kitchen from the rest of the room. He dragged himself inside and deposited his own luggage in a similar manner and let out a heavy sigh of disappointment, he hadn't expected a welcome home party or anything but he had hoped that someone might actually be in.

'Well ain't this cosy?' Alec muttered aloud to no one in particular, 'the lights are on, but no-one's home.'

Realising that the others were probably catching up downstairs in the McRory's, the young hacker turned on his heels and exited the apartment – cum office just as quickly as he'd arrived and backtracked his way down the stairs to the over-crowed bar, taking the usual shortcut of cutting through the service corridors into the back room. It didn't take long for his cocoa-coloured eyes to scan the room and to spot Sophie Deveareux sat at the bar, looking as glamourous as ever despite being dressed down in a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and an over-sized grey and black striped batwing sweater that fell fashionably off of one shoulder all teamed up with her favourite stilettos, her shopping trip to Paris had clearly paid off as Hardison had never seen her looking so Continental. From his position he could see she had a glass of red wine in one hand and her cell phone in the other, her fingers sweeping over the smart phone quickly as though she was writing a text message.

'Whatup' he smiled as he slid onto the bar stool beside her, motioning to Cora, the red-headed proprietor to bring him a tall frosted glass filled with his favourite Orange Soda. 'Where's everyone got to?'

Sophie shrugged and dropped the cell phone on the bar counter, it landed with an audible thud and Hardison couldn't help but notice that she looked hacked off over something or in her case, someone. 'That bloody Italian woman called, so Nate, of course, dropped everything and rain-checked on dinner. Y'know he can sod right off if he thinks that I'm going to be at his bloody beck and call the next time that he ends up dealing with arms dealers and corrupt politicians and nearly gets everyone bloody killed. No, he can get that cow to do it, because I'm not going to.'

Although he hadn't been expecting her outburst Hardison nodded slowly feigning sympathy, and took a sip from the glass that had appeared in front of him while Sophie had ranted on, knowing Cora, she'd probably caught the opening act before his arrival had been occupying herself in order to avoid being dragged into the mess that was Sophie and Nate's odd relationship. Despite his poor acting had absolutely no idea what to say to the grifter when it came to this subject and he felt more than a little awkward and as per usual whenever she was on a 'I hate Nate Ford's guts' jag, he found himself looking for a cue to take his leave. However it seemed that there wasn't one – his computers and other tech was upstairs and Parker and Eliot where nowhere in sight. He chugged his soda and looked to Cora, who was attending something or nothing for help, her response though was not what he expected, rather than rescue him she gave him a grim look, while her pretty green eyes sparkled with laughter, she wasn't going to help him either, he was well and truly stuck.

'So,' Hardison interjected when Sophie took a brief moment to pause and stopped flapping her gums, 'where's the others? I mean are Parker and Eliot back yet?'

Sophie shook her head, 'No, not yet. We only got back yesterday, but you know it's strange, we haven't heard from either of them all week, I thought for sure Parker would have called me to complain about Eliot, but I've not heard a peep. You?'

'Naw, I thought fo' sure Parker would have text me at least once,' he replied, 'but she ain't even done that. You don't think that there's been a double murder somewhere in the backwoods?' He questioned, half joking, half serious, but swaying more towards the serious side of his question.

'No! Don't be silly,' Sophie smiled weakly, pushing a stray strand of her dark brown hair back behind her ear. 'I'm sure they just didn't want to disturb us and they've gotten along just fine. You'll see, they'll walk through those doors before Cora calls last orders.'

Hardison raised an eyebrow in her direction, challenging her statement but the grifter commented no more on the subject and went back to sipping her drink.

Sophie's words didn't bring him any comfort at all especially as he had known that Parker had been anxious about going on her trip with Eliot, the man he considered to be his brother from another mother was known for having a short fuse when it came to the blonde thief and her antics and he somehow doubted that they would return together as the brunette had predicted, there was no doubt in his mind that their trip had ended badly in some way, shape or form and he was preparing himself to be mad with Eliot for a long time. He figured that they hadn't even made it to Virginia on Eliot's errand before the bickering started and no doubt by the time they landed in Arizona, the hitter would have been at his wits end and by the time they arrived at their first scheduled stop, Eliot would have kicked Parker out of the rental truck and sped off into the distance, leaving her stranded and alone. It occurred to him that Eliot was probably already back in town shacked up his latest conquest, Brandy or some other woman that he'd picked up in a bar somewhere, as was the hitter's style. If he was right, then Parker would be back already too, having had to make her own way home, hauled up in her compound ready to make a grand entrance through the upstairs window. And if it hadn't played out the way he expected it to, well he didn't want to think about that, not one iota.

'So, how was Paris?' Hardison asked Sophie, hoping that her ramblings about boutiques, French food and the sights of the city would change his train of thought, although he didn't really want to spend the next half hour or so listening to the British woman gush about her and Nate's trip.

Sophie's mood visibly brightened instantly, 'Oh it was wonderful…'

**/**

The rest of the day seemed to crawl by at a painfully slow rate and by the time that the red-headed Irish fireball Cora McRory closed the down bar and locked the front doors, there was one thing that Hardison was sure of – that Parker and Eliot had not returned either together or separately and a small bubble of panic began to grow inside of his being. After listening to Sophie's on again and off again tirades between recounting the events of her vacation for almost an hour and a half, he'd been about ready to chew his own ears off or scoop his brains out with a spoon but he'd finally got an out when Nate had breezed back into the bar holding a large Manila envelope and the grifter had turned her attention to him. With stealth that even Eliot Spencer would have been proud of, he'd snuck back upstairs and spent the better part of the of the evening chatting online to a couple of his friends who hadn't been able to make the convention, filling them in on what they'd missed and bragging that when the next edition was released he'd kick their asses, and the rest of it was spent listening to Sophie complain about Nate, Nate justify cancelling on their dinner and Sophie telling Nate that he was playing with fire and going to get all of them killed on his stupid crusade to take on Moreau, in his opinion Sophie's side of the argument smacked of jealousy and contempt against The Italian as it was clearly obvious to everyone that she was in love with him, only Nate seemed either completely oblivious to it or knew and just ignored it in the hopes of it going away. However, neither of them seemed to show much concern for the absence of the hitter and thief.

He was beyond concerned now, he was bordering on full out panic and paranoia and he knew that he had to make the others realise that something was wrong, really wrong. He logged off online, promising to catch up with his friends again in the near future when work wasn't so hectic and ambled though into the den next door to find Sophie curled up on the sofa watching some television show similar to Project Runway and Nate sat in an easy chair reading over the information that he'd returned from his meeting with. If he'd have had a knife, he would have cut the thick tension that lingered between them with it, both of them were clearly silently seething at each other and for a brief moment he wondered if Eliot and Parker had the right idea about staying away, but as quickly as it popped into his brain, it popped straight back out.

Hardison perched on the arm of the sofa, his eyes glancing between his elders and back to the flat-screen, crossing and uncrossing his legs in a deliberate attempt to get some sort of reaction, earning him a stern glare from Sophie who wasn't impressed that the rustling of his clothing was impairing her ability to listen to a young woman on screen explain why she'd chose to make a shocking interpretation of a dress that looked like it made out of a piece of dental floss, some aluminium foil and a refuse sack, even he, who knew nothing about women's fashions knew that a Kindergartener could make a better outfit than that with some crepe paper and a paste. Hell even Gloria Pan could have done a better job with all her damn buckles and belts. He carried on being quietly annoying, letting out small sighs every now and again until Nate finally broke the silence between them.

'Problem Hardison?' Nate peered over the document that he was reading and stared hard at the hacker, his mouth set into a thin line.

'No, no problem,' Hardison replied shaking his head, 'a crisis yes, but a problem no.'

Nate put down the document and raised a quizzical eyebrow in his direction as he raised the tumbler of Scotch to his lips. 'A crisis you say? What's wrong? Has one of your computer thingies broken down?'

From the corner of his eye, Hardison could see Sophie's attention had shifted slightly and if it was possible for a person to pin back their ears like a cat to listen to what was going on around her then that's what the grifter would have done. 'No, no, all my gear's good, it's always good cause, y'know I only buy and build the best. The crisis is that that two of our dinosaurs are missing!'

'By dinosaurs you mean Eliot and Parker,' Nate furrowed his brow as if in thought and took his time in replying to the young man before him, 'I don't see why them not been here denotes a crisis situation.'

Hardison looked positively agog, opening and closing his mouth like a cod fish at Nate's words, how he couldn't see this as a real problem was beyond him. They were down two members of their crew; they were in the middle of systematically taking out Damien Moreau and he just happened to be one of the nastiest marks they'd ever encountered, although they hadn't actually had to face off against him… yet! They had so far taken out a few of his 'business associates' who had had dealings with him and while he was positively, absolutively sure that the demises of these corporations and individuals couldn't be traced back to them, there was always, always a slim chance that The Italian was leading them up the garden path, ready to hand them to Moreau just as soon as she'd got them to do all of her dirty work. There was also the matter of Interpol and more specifically Sterling who hadn't reared his ugly head in quite a few months, but that wasn't to say that he still wasn't keeping tabs on all of them – all of them were wanted for crimes all over the world, though none more so than Parker who was wanted in nine countries. And then there was Eliot who was wanted in five countries, with a price on his head in three and a Fatwa – which he was pretty sure that Eliot had misinterpreted as a death sentence when it was in fact not. The lack of contact from either of them was unusual – albeit for the few times that they'd had to scatter after things had gone bad and they'd agreed to not to make contact with each other for a specified time – there was always a text or an e-mail from the thief or a short phone call from the hitter.

'Y'all just didn't say that,' he replied eventually, 'are you forgetting who we are, what we do and what we've done in the past?'

'I know more than you think,' Nate commented as he pushed himself out of the chair and gathered his documents up before striding towards the door and disappearing into his apartment. Hardison followed quickly behind him. 'I chased you all numerous times over the years and I work with you all on a daily basis. I'm aware of the dangers.'

'So why can't you see that there's something wrong with this picture?' Hardison challenged, knowing that he was close to overstepping the mark, especially as his comment implied that he knew why Nate wasn't seeing what was in front of him.

'Oh don't ask him that,' Sophie's voice interjected from behind him, 'the 'Great Nate Ford' can't see past the end of his bloody nose, he sees what he wants to see.'

Nate, who had been topping up his glass in the kitchen smiled and raised his glass in the grifter's direction and downed the amber liquor in one. 'What? You think that Hardison here's right, that Eliot and Parker have been captured by someone who they've wronged in the past or that Sterling's managed to conquer and divide us? What I see is that they're late coming back and Hardison's jealousy is overshadowing his logical way of thinking.'

'Me, jel…' Hardison placed his hands on his chest and feigned ignorance as he struggled to get his words out. 'Jel… I'm not jealous. What do I have to be jealous about, ain't no jealousy here. Uh uh, not one bit.'

'You sure about that?' retorted the mastermind in a challenging voice.

Truth be told, he was jealous and had been from the minute that Eliot had agreed, albeit by force, to accompany Parker on her trip.

He's so badly wished it had been him that had been the one to plan truck stops and itineraries and lay down ground rules with the thief rather than the hitter, but it had taken only twenty minutes after she'd announced her trip and everyone else had agreed on some vacation time to get himself and some of his gaming buddies on the BlitzCon VIP list and it hadn't even crossed his mind to ask her if she wanted him to go with her – he like the others thought that she'd end up cancelling it and go steal a diamond or something, not road-tripping in close proximity to a ladies man like Eliot. That man had more notches on his bed-post than he'd had hot dinners and always seemed to get the unattainable girl, not that he truly thought that his friend would make a move on Parker, knowing how he felt about her, but still it hurt him deep inside to know that it he hadn't been with her this past week and she was with him instead.

'Look, this isn't about jealousy or not,' Sophie started as she placed a hand on the hackers shoulder, 'If Hardison's concerned then maybe we should hear him out properly instead of arguing. Have you tried calling Parker or Eliot?'

'Well yeah,' Hardison admitted guiltily. 'I tried a coupla times but ain't no reply. Sent a text too.'

'Well perhaps they're in bed… not together obviously,' Sophie stumbled over her words, although Hardison was sure he saw a small gleam of something or other in her eyes, 'I mean to say that maybe Parker's asleep in her compound and that Eliot's already in his apartment sleeping off the exhaustion of spending a week driving. Have you been to check?'

'Yeah, well Eliot's apartment at least. There's no one home and I know he's not in there sleeping 'cause his truck's not in the parking garage.' he replied. 'And also, I am technically his Landlord, so I let myself in to double check.'

'Okay,' Sophie nodded thoughtfully, 'Well maybe Nate's right and they've been held up on the way home. We don't have to meet with our client until late afternoon, so hopefully they'll be back by then, all bright eyed and bushy-tailed.'

'And if not?' the hacker queried.

'That's a bridge we'll have to cross _if and when _it comes to it.' Nate added with a small smile and a nod at Sophie. 'In the meantime, go home, get some rest. Don't try tracking either of them and don't try calling them again. Leave them be for the night.'

Hardison nodded solemnly, he would keep his word, but if they weren't back home by tomorrow he would do everything in his power to track the thief and the hitter down. There was no-where they could hide without him knowing, he'd track them to the ends of the earth, especially Parker and he knew that Nate and Sophie knew he would too.

'Aight, but if they don't show, y'all know I'm gonna do what I do.' Hardison agreed as he stalked towards the front door. 'I just hope you're right.' With that opened the door and was gone, leaving the heavy door to slam shut behind him causing a loud bang to echo all around him as he headed down the corridor and into his own apartment, hoping that Nate was right and tomorrow would being about the return of the blonde girl whom he loved but had never gotten the nerve to tell.


	11. Chapter 9

**Oh my stars, a second update in a week! Are you shockled to the core yet? Thanks for all the reviews since the last update. Just so you know, if you come straight to this chapter instead of reading the Authors Notes and Disclaimer page, this story has now been up-rated from an T to an M/MA. So if you're easily offended by writings of a sexual nature then now's the time to run away screaming. **

**I just quickly want to say that if you got confused with the last chapter, then don't be. Everything will be made crystal clear a bit later on in the story and I don't want to give too much away but some of you might just be heading in the right direction if you can recall previous reviews or pms that I've exchanged with you in the past. Sooooo yeeeeaaaahhhhh!**

**Enjoy x**

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**Chapter 9**

_Emmeline Whittingstall stretched lazily and burrowed further underneath the quilt, cocooning the thick material around her petite body, preventing the remaining warmth from the bed escaping into the ether. Outside her cosy little den for one, she could hear the rustle of clothing and the soft pitter patter of bare feet on the boards of the wooden floor as their owner went about attending to their business. It was raining heavily outside, the sound of the raindrops waging war on the wooden buildings in the street outside and the hard rapping against the small window of the bedroom sent a shiver down her spine making the thought of emerging from underneath the blankets anytime soon an unwelcome thought. A few minutes longer would be all she allowed herself to linger otherwise she wouldn't make it back to the ranch before dawn and her absence would be noticed._

_Over the past two months or so, the young girl had become rather good at sneaking back into the ranch and had only been caught once – luckily though it had been Betsy who had foiled her but Emmeline's quick thinking had conjured up the excuse of taking an early morning stroll through the gardens after a restless night. The free woman had accepted her explanation, but sometimes, she gave the young woman a suspicious look to say that she knew more than she was willing to say, still Emmeline had been sure never to be in that position again because the next time she might not be so lucky with who she bumped into._

_She hated having to leave him, knowing that she couldn't touch him whenever she wanted to and having to put on airs and graces whenever she saw him in the street or after Church, not that it completely stopped either of them. There were stolen kisses under the old Oak at the picnics on Sundays and they'd even managed to make love down by the creek a few times, albeit in some positions that she was sure were sins to even be thought of let alone put into practice. It was strange how much she now loved and wanted the man that she had been determined to hate so at the start. _

_The young woman stretched her legs under the covers and sighed softly as she cast her mind back to the first night they'd spent together, the first night that she had become a woman and his woman at that. It had been the night of the Church picnic, the event in which she had practically begged the mysterious gunslinger who had captured her heart to take her, right there in front of the towns people and it was the day that she discovered that he was one Caleb Black, the very man who had sent her father home from a rendezvous bloodied and beaten. _

**/**

_The ride home from the picnic had been a quiet one for Emmeline, she was in shock at having not only discovered that her father was still on pleasant terms with this man, but also that he was the one who she had been fantasising about for weeks. Her father hadn't said much on the journey back to the ranch either and it had been an awkward to say the least. On the one hand she wanted to ask her father why he was still doing business with the man, but she bit her tongue, knowing that he wouldn't discuss it with her and fearing the back of his hand if she forced the matter. On the other, she was furious at being deceived by this man; this Caleb Black person who had partially stolen her innocence, knowing who she was all along and playing a twisted game with her heart and mind. It was a game that she would no longer play, she would not be taken for a fool any longer and it was with a steely determination that she decided that she would not even think of the man ever again, let alone keep her promise to meet with him at midnight._

_The rest of Sunday passed without event; Emmeline visited her mother's gardens, did a little sewing work and ate a quiet supper with her father before retiring to bed early, feigning feeling ill from the heat of the day's sun. She softly cried herself to sleep, her covers over her head so that she could not be heard by Betsy or her father. Although she didn't know how long she had slept for, there was a full moon which shone brightly through her bedroom window, despite the thickness of the drapes and it hampered her sleep, waking her several times from strange dreams about a man that looked like Black, yet was different at the same time. Each time she awoke, she couldn't help but think of him and her ire burned through her like a full body fever. _

'_How dare he,' she thought bitterly as she tossed and turned one last time before sitting up in her bed, 'How dare he make me want him so and then humiliate me?'_

_Emmeline pounded her fists on her on bed clothes, part of her now so incensed that she wanted to keep their arrangement so she could give him a piece of her mind and the other part of her telling her that she should forget about him and hold her head high. Eventually, her anger won out and the blonde girl dressed quickly in a simple dress of white cotton that didn't require being laced up, grabbed a crocheted shawl and hurriedly pushed her tiny feet into to a pair of lace-up boots before putting into practice her forgotten years of tree climbing and exited her room though her bedroom window. _

_Quickly and quietly, Emmeline deftly climbed down the trellising outside and landed with a small thud on the ground outside of her father's study. There were no lights on inside the house, which indicated that all inside were asleep, but she couldn't be too careful and keeping low, she stealthily hurried around the house and out towards the stable and bunkhouse where the horses were kept and the workers often slept. Fortunately for her, the bunkhouse was in darkness also, which made it easy for her to get inside the stable and tack up her horse and lead him a little way away from the ranch before mounting the stallion and riding into town. _

_With a fierce anger that burned even hotter inside of her, Emmeline rode as if she were flying on the wind, determined to say her piece to Caleb Black as soon as possible and return home to bed. As she entered the town, she slowed the horse and quietly trotted through the few back streets that led onto the main store fronts of Angel Creek. There was seemingly a disturbance out front of the Saloon, which didn't wholeheartedly surprise her as its reputation for trouble was well known through the township and was the reason for many of the Preachers Sunday sermons on sinning and temptation. _

_Leaving the safe confines of the streets, she entered the tree line that bordered the meadow behind the school house. In spite of the moonlight, the trees were in near complete darkness and she was wary of who or what was lurking in the cover of them, although she was almost certain that the tales of Savages hiding out in them was just an excuse for all the mothers in the town to keep their children near at all times. Emmeline dismounted her steed and tethered him at the edge of the meadow, a short way away from the place where she had agreed to meet Caleb Black. _

_She had no idea of the time, although judging by the kerfuffle near the Saloon which she knew closed at Midnight, she gathered that it was probably a quarter after, and she fancied that the man would have become tired of waiting for her and left. The night breeze was cool and she was thankful for bringing the shawl as she pulled it tightly around her frame as she made her way towards the old Oak. She was surprised to find that Caleb was cockily leant against its ancient trunk, his hat pulled low over his face, holding what seemingly looked like a bouquet of wild flowers. She had hoped that she would find him already gone from the place, so that she wouldn't have to confront him at all, but clearly he had other ideas. _

_Caleb pushed himself off the tree and gazed upon her lithe form as if he hadn't seen her in months, and suddenly that feeling of wantonness was stirring inside of her. She forced it back down and let her anger continue to simmer, even when he handed her the flowers, rather than admire them as he probably expected her to do, she gave him a wry smile and grasped them in her hand, letting her arm hang limply at her side._

'_Miss Emmeline,' Caleb drawled as he pushed his Stetson up with a single finger, the moonlight illuminating his face and making his eyes glow a strange violet colour, 'you look as pretty as a picture.' _

_The young blonde girl glared with all her might at the man in front of her, determined to not be pleasant and demure as she expected. 'Mr. Black,' she said curtly, 'I do not wish for your compliments or your attention. I have only come tonight to ask you to leave my father and I alone.'_

_Caleb took a step towards her, closing the small gap between them both, he was close enough that she could a hint of whisky and tobacco mixed with peppermint on his breath. He was close to her that she could feel the heat from his body radiating out towards her, warming the bare skin that her dress and shawl didn't cover. It took all that was in her not to flinch when he reached out and captured a stray lock of hair within the grasp of his right hand, gently caressing it as it slid between his fingers before moving his hand to stroke the side of her face. _

'_Why should I do that?,' he said, his voice husky and barely above a whisper, his eyes roving all over her face, willing her to look at him. 'You're the Goddess Aphrodite in the moonlight, you have ensnared me Miss Emmeline and you're my woman, mine always.''_

_Right then and there, Emmeline almost lost all of her resolve as the wantonness that she was trying hard to surpress within rose to the surface and near enough begged her to leap into his arms. Her mind momentarily forgetting why she was so mad with the man before her, but then he said something that she didn't quite catch in her lusty haze, but it sounded as if he'd said something along the lines of 'You're my woman,' and that made her blood boil and her anger rise to the surface, forcing her desire back down, 'You're mine always.' _

_Suddenly it was if a volcano was erupting inside of her, like the red hot lava bubbling to the surface of the crater as did Emmeline's ire and before she could restrain herself, her hand struck out and hit Caleb Black full force in the side of his face. It had been like striking a slab of granite with a piece of chalk, and the shockwave jolted up her arm with satisfaction, especially as she noted that he was rubbing the left side of his jaw._

'_Damn it Emmeline,' he groused with a slight chuckle in his voice, 'what in the name of the Lord did I do to deserve that?'_

_The woman stared at him incredulously. How could he not know what he'd done to deserve the blow that she had dealt? Did his arrogance know no bounds? Could he not see that she hadn't been playing a game with him as he was clearly doing with her? If he didn't understand the she wasn't going to stand there and explain it to him. She turned on her heel and began to stalk away back in the direction of which she'd come._

_Emmeline hadn't gotten much further than a few feet away before she felt Caleb grab her elbow and spin her around. The momentum of her turn brought her almost nose to nose with him, their bodies only an inch or so apart, forgetting that she had the flowers in her free hand, she raised her arm again and walloped him with the bouquet, sending a shower of petals and leaves over them both, and collecting on the rim of Caleb's black hat. When he didn't relinquish his grasp on her arm and instead used his free hand to capture the arm she was battering him with, causing her to drop the ruined posy to the ground._

'_Let me go,' the blonde girl grimaced, struggling to find a way to free herself from her bonds. 'Mr. Black, you are a rogue and a scallywag and I demand that you let me go or I will scream so loud that half of Angel Creek will awaken.'_

'_And if ya did, I think you'd have a hard time explainin' why you're outta bed at this hour, with a man, me no less.' Caleb lessened his grip, but did not let go of her arm._

_She had to admit that he had her there, if she did cry for help, it would bring her illicit encounters with him to the surface and she would be scandalised and branded a Jezebel and her reputation as a lady would be in tatters, not to mention what the scandal would do to her father. No, she couldn't bring further shame to her family, he had done that already and he had worked so hard to change that over the past few weeks. _

'_Regardless, I do wish you would let go of me,' Emmeline sighed, 'I will return home and forget about this whole sorry affair and you can do the same.'_

'_Why would I wanna do that? You still haven't explained yaself to me and until you do, I ain't lettin' you go no where.' Caleb's voice softened a little and despite her constant struggling, he managed to nuzzle his head into the crook of her shoulder and began to nibble her ear._

'_You have been playing a wicked game with me Caleb Black,' she all but moaned, her body on the verge of betraying her as it relaxed slightly and began to mould against his, 'Did you really think that I would not come to realise that you are the man who beat my father weeks ago? I was part of your game was I not? To take the last decent thing of his seeing as you already took his dignity.'_

_Caleb chuckled against her ear before pulling his head back to look her in the eyes. 'Do you know how I earn my livin'?' He paused as Emmeline shook her head. 'I might own the Saloon but I get my real money from brokering. Your father owed me money for some land he purchased from me out near the creek. That's what that meeting was about. I told him that I wanted what was owed otherwise I was gonna take the ranch as collateral, but I assure you I ain't never laid a hand on him.'_

'_Then who,' she questioned, a million and one things running through her head including a small voice that told her he was telling her the truth. _

_The man shook his head. 'I ain't sure darlin', your father owe's a lotta men who come in my place, it could be any one of 'em. I might be as mean as a snake sometimes, but ya stole my heart that night in the garden and I ain't never gonna do anythin' to hurt ya.'_

_Emmeline nodded, her anger turning from a rapid boil to a steady simmer. 'Why didn't you tell me the truth about who you were this afternoon when we were alone? I have never felt as humiliated as I did today.'_

_Caleb released his grip on Emmeline, snaking a free arm around her waist and using the other, he stroked her face lovingly, with a feather-light touch taking in her features. 'I am sorry about that; I had intended to tell you. But, oh Lord, your sweet mouth on mine makes me forget my senses. Forgive me?'_

_Before she could answer, he pressed his lips to her own, chastely at first, then more hungrily as his desire built within him. She reciprocated almost immediately, her arms reaching up behind his neck and knocking his hat off his head so that she could rake her hands through his chestnut-coloured hair. She didn't have to say another word, he knew as well as she did that he was forgiven. _

_Emmeline had not lost her innocence to Caleb Black that night nor the next, but she had given him her heart and a promise that she would be his forever, come what may. _

**/**

_The young woman turned on her side intending to snuggle deeper down but she felt a weight on the vacant side of the bed and a pair of strong hands snaked themselves underneath the covers, one stoking her blond tousled hair and the other leaving a red hot burn on her creamy skin as it trailed along her thigh to her waist, pulling her ever so slightly backwards, the bunched up blankets providing a barrier against herself and her tormentor. _

'_Hummmpppfffff,' Emmeline mumbled, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips, 'You wouldn't kick a lady out bed would you?'_

_The hand on her waist was abruptly removed and pulled away, shortly followed by the bed clothes, the cool air chilled her bare naked skin slightly but not for long as it was with lightening precision that she was wrestled from her position to a new one where she was crushed beneath the weight of her lover, her legs locked into position by his and her arms pinned above her head, staring up into a pair of intensely sapphire-blue eyes. Emmeline smiled wickedly as she saw the lust in those eyes and had she had a spare hand free she would have shown her lover just how much she was lusting after him right then and there. _

'_Damn right I would,' he growled lowering his face to hers and briefly pressing his lips to her own, 'Because ya ain't no lady.'_

'_Why Sir, where do you hear such things?' the young woman scoffed, pretending to look hurt at his words._

_The man lowered his head once again so that his mouth was against the young woman's ear and chuckled softly. 'When ya do the thing's you do to me Emme, I know you ain't no lady but you are mine. Don't let anyone tell ya any different.' Emmeline nodded solemnly. _

'_Mine,' he said as he gently nibbled her ear lobe, 'Mine,' he said again as he kissed his way along her jaw, before crushing his mouth against her lips._

_It lasted only seconds but let the young woman breathless. 'Yours,' Emmeline whispered, 'always yours Caleb Black, no matter what.' _

_Caleb grinned a lazy grin of satisfaction, knowing he had won the answer that he wanted to hear. With his free hand, he pushed a stray blonde lock of hair away from her face, so that he could see her better, allowing his fingers to gently touch her skin. It sent a shudder straight to the very heart of her and made her wanton with desire, a familiar heat rising in the depths of her stomach, begging to be sated and it didn't help that she could feel his hard lean length through the thick material of his black pants as it pressed against her most intimate of places. _

_Emmeline wriggled underneath him, hoping that he would take her silent suggestion, but he refused to play her game, instead, he sighed softly and rested his forehead against her own. 'You must go Emme, the sun will be up soon and we've lingered long enough.' _

'_I know,' she sighed, 'I expect your sister will be growing impatient.'_

_At the mention of his sister, Caleb nodded as he knew she would be indeed growing impatient waiting to escort his lover back to the ranch, as she did each and every morning, but as sisters do, she didn't complain much about the situation, in fact his sister fancied it romantic and would often tell them that they should hurry up and get married already. _

'_I'm sure Caroline'll wait a lil' longer,' he whispered wickedly as he slid a hand long the curvature of her breast, down to the plains of her stomach and lower still until he found her heat and he began to pleasure her. _

_Caleb's fingers brushed across her sensitive nub and dipped lower finding the place in her folds where he could enter her with his fingers, first one, then two, moving them in and out with an easy and even rhythm. Emmeline whimpered in pleasure as the fire in her belly began to build and she came close to orgasm quickly, but it wasn't enough for her, she wanted him inside of her, wanted to feel him explode at the same time that she did. She begged him with her eyes until the man nodded once and retracted his hand from between her legs. Quickly, he unbuttoned his black pants, pushing them down as far as he could get them as he freed his hard long length. The blonde woman let out a gasp; it still amazed her to see his manhood, so ready and willing to give her and him both pleasure and she couldn't deny that she anticipated that feeling of fullness within, welcomed it even. _

_She spread her legs wider; ready and eager for him to enter her but instead he prolonged her desire by kissing her mouth, neck and then each of her breasts, teasing her more by taking her nipples in his mouth, sucking them hard and grazing his teeth over them. His hand found her heat once again and she thought that she might lose all control then and there as his fingers entered her, a little more rougher than they had earlier. She didn't mind, she liked the feeling for she knew that soon, he would replace them with his shaft and continue the pace. Emmeline wasn't disappointed, he entered her quickly, filling her up and stretching her sideways with his girth. He waited for her to get used to the feeling for a few moments before he began to move in and out of her heat slowly at first with a gentle thrusting motion and then he was building up a familiar rhytym, one stroke, two strokes, harder and faster. She was climbing higher and higher, getting ever closer to the edge of the precipice, she knew Caleb was close too. She could feel him harden inside of her and then suddenly they were falling, down, down, down, calling each others names aloud as they climaxed together.  
_

_Breathless and spent, Caleb kissed her before falling on the bed beside her and pulling her close. This was where she wanted to be forever; this was her home, right here in his loving embrace. However, she knew that she had to leave him now to return to the ranch and with that in mind, she left Caleb sated on the bed, dressed quickly and hurried to the door._

'_I love you Caleb Black,' she whispered as she opened the door and hurried on to the landing above the empty Saloon. _

'_I love you too, Emme,' he called back, 'I always have and I always will.'  
_


	12. Chapter 10

**Hello all, so sorry that I've taken so long to update this, it's been almost a month and I've been battling with a bout of writers block. Nasty thing that it is firstly had me completely blocked with this one while other stories popped into my head and then it blocked me out from writing those too. You'd think that after 12 years I'd now be immune to it, but no, not me. **

**I have to admit that I don't think this chapter is one of my best and I know load of writers say to write when you can't, but I swear the first couple of workings on this were utter and complete pants. I deleted them and tried again and again and while I'm not completely 100% happy with this I am happy with it for now. There might come a time when I re-work this chapter again, but for now it'll have to do. Also, I think the fact that I keep trying for weekly updates on this is and trying to keep on top of my family and home stuff is pushing me to become slightly bunged up and causing myself to spread myself too thin - especially as the summer holidays are fast approaching us and I'm teaching my son to read and write before he starts school in September. I will however strive to at least update once a fortnight - I think I can cope with that. Hopefully, now that I've overcome my little glitch I can get on with working my way through the rest of the plot outline that I have and I can update with some truly worthy writing. **

**Anyhoo, thanks for all your patience.  
**

**Laura x**

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**Chapter 10**

Tuesday morning dawned bright and early in Angel Creek, bringing with it cloudless azure blue skies that showed no sign of the previous day's storm and the barely risen sun was already promising to bring the summer heat in abundance. Parker awoke feeling refreshed despite the restlessness that her dreams brought and despite the fact that she had consumed copious amounts of hard liquor in lieu of her usual soda the previous evening she was pleased to discover that she had a clear head, although she didn't recall much after eventually cleaning Eliot out during their last game of Poker. She had lost count of how many glasses of JD and Jim Bean she'd drunk and hadn't even been aware of eventually falling asleep, but she knew that she hadn't been in bed when she had done so and she guessed she had the hitter to thank for carrying her upstairs to bed.

Parker kicked back the covers, sending a small cloud of fine dust into the air and was a little upset to find herself still dressed in the red gown which was now looking very creased and dishevelled, although she was _slightly _disappointed that Eliot hadn't undressed her but she couldn't pin point whether it was because she didn't want the dress ruined or that she wanted him to see her naked. The one thing that she did know for sure is that the dreams that had plagued her for the past few nights were becoming more intensely erotic, leaving her already scrambled brain full of confusing thoughts and her heart full of different kinds of feelings towards the hitter. She loved Eliot, of that she was sure, but the thin line between the love of a brother and a friend was becoming blurred and she knew that she was heading somewhere that she shouldn't. It was crazy, she knew it was, but she couldn't help it. She'd seen a side to him that he'd never expressed to anyone else in the last three days and she was suddenly seeing him in a whole new light, it was as if someone had taken the blinkers off and she was experiencing the three minute rule of attraction, three years too late and in the space of three days. She wasn't naive enough to think that anything would come of it, Eliot liked to be a ladies man and although he had a bit of a regular thing going with some college cheerleader, she didn't think he'd had a proper relationship with anyone since Aimee, nor did she think that he wanted one. And if he did, well he certainly wouldn't want one with damaged goods like her. That aside, she couldn't help but harbour the fantasy that perhaps he would be her first, he was after all the one man that she could wholly trust to take her to bed and steal her virginity.

Letting out a heavy sigh the blonde thief swung her legs out of bed, wincing momentarily as her bare feet touched the cool wooden floor, wondering for a second where she'd left her flip flops. She remembered kicking them off downstairs yesterday afternoon, but had no clue where they'd ended up after that. It was only then that she noticed that they were sat atop her dry yet grubby clothes that she last remembered been left to air beside the fire last night and she realised that Eliot must have brought them up for her.

'_That's my Eliot,'_ Parker smiled to herself,_ 'always looking out for me.' _My Eliot! She shook her head; she really was going out of her head if she was starting to think of the hitter as some sort of possession that she had a claim of ownership over and she didn't think he'd really appreciate that at all. She dressed quickly and listened out for signs of life elsewhere in the Saloon, there seemed to be none and there were no smells of cooking to indicate that either Eliot was up and about or that he had found something in his store cupboard rations to cook for breakfast. With a cat-like gait, Parker silently left her room, crept along the landing and ventured down the stairs into the bar room below.

The early morning sunshine was bright and illuminated the room with a renewed brightness that was lacking the previous day when she and the hitter had arrived bedraggled from being caught in the rain and battered from their spill in the truck. Parker leant against the counter top watching the dust motes as they danced in the beams of light that shone in through the window with graceful elegance as they eventually came to land on the various surfaces that the room had to offer and it was only then that she realised that the whole room was in desperate need of a spring clean, with the poor visibility and her amazement when they'd arrived yesterday, she hadn't paid much attention to the layers of grey fluff that coated much of the furniture and gathered in piles in the corners of the room. There were voids here and there, which indicated that the hitter must have cleaned some areas last night while she was day dreaming in the bath tub, but she was surprised that Eliot being Eliot – a man who took pride in everything he did, hadn't thought to cover everything up with dust sheets after his last visit to avoid this very situation. She knew there must have been a good reason – perhaps the weather had taken a turn for the worst and he had to leave in a hurry.

Parker liked the smell of dust, it reminded her of been in the air ducts that she haunted so very often. It was comforting and provided a sense of familiarity and security – for many years it was probably the only thing that she could be completely and utterly sure of because it was anywhere and everywhere. But this dust was different and weirdly it didn't smell of dust, maybe because the building had been closed up for such a long time and the overpowering smells of varnish and new wood hadn't had time to dissipate, instead permeating into the soft matter. As she stood there assessing the dirt Parker was tempted, very tempted to write her name in the thick layers in a childish attempt to lay claim on a table or chair. She didn't though and instead headed towards the back of the building to seek out something to clean with.

The back rooms remind the woman of small freight containers, she'd slept in enough of them to know what they were like, with not a lot of space. The kitchen was the only room slightly bigger than two of the others put together in order to house the cook stove and while it was comfortably cramped, packed to the rafters with furniture and the table it was still large enough to fit at least four or five people in. She by-passed a small office and a room that was stacked high with paint, varnish and a vast selection of power tools, some of which she was sure were not used for DIY and looked more like they could be used for torturing someone – she made a mental note to ask Eliot about those later and eventually came up on a small closet at the end of the hall, where she found a mop, bucket, broom and some old cloths. She filled her arms with as much as she could and retreated back the way she came, stopping only in the kitchen to fill the bucket with some warm soapy water, determined to clean as much of the Saloon before the hitter came down.

The blonde thief got to work immediately, humming a little ditty that she remembered one of her foster mothers singing to her as she set about wiping down the tables with a dampened cloth, ensuring that no trace of grime remained. As she worked, Parker mentally planned out a new itinerary for her trip as the previous plans that she and Eliot had made were now redundant and there was much more to explore out here than there had been in any of their previous plans. The first thing that they would have to do would be to salvage what they could from the smashed up rental and haul it back to the Saloon, maybe change into some fresh clothing and then it would be onto discover what hidden gems the abandoned stores and homesteads had to offer, knowing now that Eliot was right about the other places being commercialised and un-authentic and that Angel Creek was truly the place to over indulge in her obsession of an age gone by. Then there was the matter of the treasure hunt. That would have to figure into their plans also, although she didn't want that to infringe on too much of their time in the old town, especially as they only had just short of five days left before they had to rendezvous with the rest of the team back home in Boston. Five days to figure out her confused feelings for her friend, the hitter and to discover why this old, dilapidated ghost town was connected not only to her dreams, but to them both – because she was now wholeheartedly certain that there was something that had drawn both her and Eliot to Angel Creek and she was determined to find out what it was and why, even if it proved to everyone that she was truly crazier than crazy.

Parker paused for a moment and assessed her cleaning prowess having now completely purged all of the furniture of grime, swept the remaining dust bunnies from the every nook and cranny and mopped the hardwood floor. She had even made the glass windows sparkle and gleam, allowing more of the bright sunshine to filter inside the building, it lifted her spirits and not that she would ever admit it to anyone, but it made her feel like a hard done to fairy tale princess to be waiting for the inevitable happy ending.

'All I need is a few animals about the place, a bird or two to braid my hair and seven dwarves.' Parker mused aloud to no one in particular.

'Dwarves? Why would you want the seven dwarves?' Eliot's mildly amused yet curious drawl startled the thief and she jumped slightly at the sound of his voice.

'Hmmmm, you're right,' she said as she turned on her heel to face where the voice had come from only to find that the hitter was standing at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in his dirt streaked clothes from the day before. Parker bounced towards him, a small smile playing on her lips as she reached out her finger and squished his nose flat. 'I don't need seven, I've got you and you've got enough of a split personality to cover all of them!' And then she was gone, leaving Eliot looking slightly stunned, opening and closing his mouth like a cod-fish while he tried to find a suitable retort that didn't come.

**/**

Over a quick breakfast of reconstituted eggs and black coffee which Parker had surprisingly prepared, it was mutually decided that the first order of the day's business was to head out into the trees and assess the damage of the smashed up rental truck, retrieve their luggage and salvage any unspoilt foods. The blonde thief it seemed, was especially happy at this idea and Eliot figured it was not only because they both needed a change of clothing but more so because she had procured several boxes of sugar-coated cereal and umpteen cans of cola when they'd stocked up on supplies at a large Value More supermarket on the outskirts of Oklahoma City and no doubt Parker was in desperate need of a sugar boost.

The short trek out of the town and through the vast pasture beyond the school house was an uneventful one with both the hitter and the thief ambling along in comfortable silence, each of them in their own head space and assessing their own private thoughts. Eliot couldn't help but notice that Parker seemed to have an all round glow to her and if he didn't know any better he would have guessed that she'd been made love to several times during the course of the night, this observation brought a few dirty thoughts floating into his own mind, particularly the one image that flashed briefly through his brain that involved the petite blonde and a harness. For the second time in the past few days he felt a little bit ashamed that he had been thinking of his best friend's crush in such ways that he really shouldn't have been, but he couldn't help it there had always been something about her that made him attracted to her despite her crazy and impulsive tendencies and he knew that if he didn't rein it in he was going to end up making a play for her before their trip was done and to hell with the rest.

It wasn't quite midday and the late morning sun was already blazing down upon them, draining them of their energy and Eliot wished he was down by the creek, with a couple of beers and his fishing rod, in fact his desire reminded him of a country music song that he liked where the protagonist is beside a lake on a hot day with his girlfriend and some ice cubes, he couldn't remember the name of it thought and he knew that it would secretly irk him until the early hours of the morning when it would present itself in his sleep deprived brain. He was so lost in his new train of thought – mainly picturing an act from the song being acted out on Parker - that he didn't immediately notice the thief motioning to him that she wanted to stop for a rest underneath the same old Oak tree that they'd sheltered from the rain under. Its large boughs were green and leafy and cast just the right amount of shade to allow them to catch their breath. Five minutes was all he was going to allow them to loiter otherwise they would waste the rest of the day and he so hated to waste time when there was a million and one things that needed to be done – although Parker's decision to do the cleaning earlier meant that he had one less thing to do.

He slumped against the ancient tree trunk and stared out into the distance, noting the long lush meadow grasses showed no signs of the previous days storms and that there was an abundance of wildlife flitting and flying about the wildflowers, their gossamer wings causing a soft buzzing sound that combined with the other sounds around them, the gentle breeze, birds chattering in the trees and the odd shake of a rattle or two. Eliot wasn't going to admit it aloud, but he loved scenery like this, it was something that he rarely got to see these days, while he liked the hustle and bustle that city living he couldn't deny that he missed seeing the untouched landscapes of the State he'd grown up in and not even the sights he'd seen on his travels all over the world could compare. This was home, the place where his heart would always belong and eventually the little town of Angel Creek was going to be his own private retirement village in years to come when he was done with the retrieval business and when the team finally decided to part ways permanently – the time was near he could feel it in his bones. It was only a matter of time before Nate and Sophie finally got their act together and left to find their own happy ending, and personally it couldn't come soon enough because he like Parker and Hardison found their little on again off again romance and the melodrama that came with it boring. Eliot knew that when they did leave he would stick with the other two for a few years longer before he took his own leave of absence and live the that he'd always dreamed of living, the life of a cowboy. He would become self sufficient, raise cattle and maybe find a girl to marry, have a son or a daughter and live out the rest of his days restoring the town more than he had already set about doing so over the past six years.

Parker squeaked behind him, pulling him from his reverie and he was suddenly aware that the girl was pacing around the tree in semi-circles. It was surprising that one minute she could act relatively normal and then the next, revert back to the strange behaviour that she was currently exhibiting. It still surprised him after all this time that she could still annoy him like this, although he was more immune to it these days, rarely commenting on it so he didn't give the girl any more complexes than she already had and in some ways he found her strange ways endearing. Smiling, Eliot shook his head and opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing, but the words never came out, they died in his throat as he caught a glimpse of a woman dressed in white from the corner of his eye. Turning his head ninety degrees to the left and he stared upon her fully as she loitered at the edge of meadow a few feet away from the trees and while he couldn't be sure if she was the same woman from yesterday who stood in the middle of the dirt track looking very much like the blonde thief, who was still busying herself with whatever it was she was doing behind him, he had a gnawing feeling deep in the pit of his stomach that she was. Although there was some distance between them, he could see that she had flowing blond curls and an ethereal glow to her. Eliot couldn't be sure if she was looking at him or at something in the distance but she didn't linger long, she turned around quickly, whipping her hair around her and bolted into the trees.

Before he knew what he was doing Eliot pushed himself off from his place on the old tree and gave chase through the meadow, barely hearing anything but the pounding of his feet on the ground, the swish of the long grasses as they battered against his lean legs and the rush of his blood as it pounded in his ears. He didn't hear Parker call out to him nor would he have seen the look of concern on her face because he didn't stop to look back. Not that he cared at that moment in time; he didn't even care about the burning feeling in his chest, even though his body cried out in protest, reminding him that he shouldn't be exerting himself with broken ribs and a slightly punctured lung. Eliot's mind was wholly centered on the girl he'd just seen, the logical part of his brain told him that he needed to know if she had been the one in the road and if she was what the hell she was doing on his land, while the illogical part of him wanted to know if she was ghost.

The half mile between where he'd left his friend and the line of trees that bordered the pasture should have taken around thirty minutes or so to walk at a normal pace; Eliot figured that he'd closed the distance in a little under ten minutes, having always been a fast runner since his high school days when he was a star athlete on the football field. He ducked inside the line of trees and into the vast copse. It was gloomy with minimum light filtering down through the leafy canopy above him; the rain that had fallen during the night had left the air damp and muggy with a distinctive smell of wet wood and that of the fusty, rotting mulch of leaves and plants that covered the woodland floor. There was no sign of the girl that the hitter had been chasing, so he carried on, slowing his pace to a jog until he came to a complete stop in a small clearing; his chest heaving and his breath coming out in laboured pants which he knew were a sign of pushing his damaged body too far, too soon, however despite the struggle to catch his breath, Eliot still took the time to carefully listen to the sounds around him, hoping to hear a sign that the woman was still somewhere in the vicinity, possibly hiding amongst the trees but there were no sounds at all, unlike the meadow the silence in the woodland was deathly silent with not even a rustle of leaves from the trees.

The air seemed to be more charged here than he had ever felt it in the town proper and he had a hard time admitting to himself that he was slightly creeped out by the sensation that he was being watched by a thousand unseen eyes – and something told him deep down in the pit of his stomach that it wasn't just his mind recalling the old Cherokee legend of The Cedar Tree that his grandmother used to tell him. No, there was something else here other than the spirits of his ancestors and it definitely didn't feel welcoming, it didn't help that the only signs of actual life came from a bird high up in the branches of a tree somewhere above him and the scuttling sounds made by some insect or another. Suppressing a shudder, Eliot decided to walk deeper into the trees, almost entering the first pasture that held the old ramshackle limestone ranch house that had been his Uncle Randy's, hoping to find some clue of the mysterious woman's whereabouts, looking for any signs on the mulch covered floor – a footprint or some other sort of disturbance, but he came up empty. The girl he'd chased has simply and impossibly vanished into thin air. Of course, Eliot reasoned with himself that she could have back around and entered the trees again from another entry point especially as he knew that there were no hiding places between the trees and the ranch and the trek on foot took almost the same amount of time to walk from the storefronts of the town to the old Oak tree where he'd left Parker.

'Parker!' the hitter growled in self-frustration, 'dammit Eliot!' He'd forgotten all about his petite blonde companion in his determination to track down the girl. He turned on his heel and stalked his way back into the copse and towards the place he'd crashed the truck, where he hoped his friend was waiting for him.

A short while later, Eliot found himself at the edge of the dirt road that he'd driven the rental down less than twenty-four hours before. It was a makeshift road that he had navigated many times over the past six years and in all weathers, therefore he still was finding it hard to think that he had lost control of the vehicle and ensured it was on more than a first name basis with a tree. It took only a few minutes for him to negotiate the undergrowth and find his way to the spot where they had vacated in a hurry yesterday, away from the smoking wreckage of damaged flat-bed. The blonde thief wasn't there, which meant that she was still making her way across the meadow or she'd gotten herself lost. While he waited, Eliot inspected the wreckage. It was a write-off and there was no way that he would ever be able to drive it again. The front axel had snapped and the driver's side was crushed and contorted. He was lucky to have escaped with just a few broken ribs and some scratches. The right hand side of the back of the truck had also taken a battering, but luckily the damage hadn't been bad enough that anything had caught fire and exploded. In fact, he discovered that the truck still had power and had been keeping all the fresh foodstuffs they had bought cool in the small fridge that he'd hooked up to be powered by the car battery.

After dragging their bags from the back of the truck and depositing them onto a small pile a few feet away he ambled back over and removed the groceries and other food stuffs that Parker had insisted they purchase and deposited them on the pile also. It was becoming clear that getting the haul back to town was going to take at least two journeys and he momentarily wished he'd have thought to have brought one of the old carts from the disused livery out on the trek with them, not that it would have mattered down as his recent actions would have caused the cart to be abandoned along with the blonde thief. If only he hadn't crashed the damn truck, he could have saved themselves a job by driving through the meadow and parking it in the usual spot next to the old Schoolhouse. Cursing himself while he tried to thing of a solution that would save time and effort in the long run he began to look around the area, looking once again for clues that the ethereal looking woman he'd been chasing only minutes earlier had been in the area and not just today only this time he concentrated his efforts in the place where she had been stood in the rain. There was nothing here either.

Eliot kicked at the ground frustratedly with the tip of his boot and decided that he was losing touch with reality. Hallucinating indeed, seeing girls that looked like Parker, lusting after Parker and now to ice the cake completely he was hanging around in the deep dark woods like some sort of pervert waiting for either Parker or the girl that looked like her to come to him. 'Give me a long raincoat like the one Columbo wears,' he grumbled aloud, 'and I may as well become a flasher.'

The hitter kicked the ground one last time for good measure and as he did so, he caught a glimpse of something shiny hiding underneath the years of built up detritus. He dropped to his knees and spent a few seconds raking in the muck with his hands and he wasn't disappointed with his prize. He held in his hand a silver ring encrusted with what looked to be sapphires and emeralds attached to a fine silver chain and looked as though it could have been an antique. It was, however, surprisingly dirt free despite been hidden for God only knew how long. Eliot clasped it in his hand and pushed himself to his feet, feeling somewhat smug that he had found what he considered proof that he was in fact completely and utterly sane.

**/**

The shade of the tree felt fantastic against her hot flushed skin and she was thankful that Eliot had agreed to her proposal to take a few moments to rest underneath the old Oak tree. Its large boughs reminded her of a tree that she used to climb as child at one of her foster homes where she had spent the summer just being a child. While she'd been placed in some awful foster homes, they hadn't been all bad and she _did _have a few good childhood memories – especially when she met Archie Leech, the man who was for all intents and purposes had become her father in more ways than one, although he never gave her a proper home for fear that his true occupation be revealed to his family, he had been good to her over the years. He'd taken her from the streets where she was scraping a living by stealing cars when she was eleven and trained her, conditioned her, moulded her into the stellar thief that she was today. He had also bought her a small place to live and for that she was thankful. She tried not to dwell too much on the fact that he had a family that she would never be a part of as she paced around the tree truck in semi-circles, looking for footings that she might find useful.

On her second time around, her eye was drawn to several crudely carved initials that had been etched into the thick ancient bark many moons ago, but the most intriguing of these carvings was carved high up underneath an over hanging branch, in letters so tiny that if you didn't have a photographic memory you'd miss them for a second time but there they were, perfectly carved and almost perfectly hidden. C.B + E.W. She didn't have to think for very long before she came to the conclusion that the initials C.B. stood for Caleb Black, her cowboy dream lover. Parker paced again, slower this time, deliberating and recalling her dreams. E.W. had to stand for the woman who she'd been dreaming about, or rather the person that she was in her dreams. Emmeline something or other, she hadn't quite caught her last name having been distracted by her dreamgasms and the fact that Caleb Black bore an uncanny and equally dangerous resemblance to Eliot.

Parker noticed that Eliot was leant casually against the tree, a far away look on his face albeit a look of what she thought was contentment. She rarely saw him as relaxed as she had done over the past few days and at the present moment; he looked at least ten years younger than she knew he really was and like he didn't have a horrible past of his own. Her life had been no picnic and while she knew that Eliot had grown up in a loving, stable environment, she also knew that deep down there were just as many unresolved issues as she had that ate away at him more than he probably liked. Over the years, both of them had come to trust each other in ways that they couldn't quite trust the others. Sure, she trusted Nate to make sure that she was safe on the job and in some ways she looked to him as a father-type figure. She knew that he had grown to love and respect her in such away that that it was often overwhelming to think that anyone could care for her like he did. She trusted Sophie as one would trust a mother, she always gave her great advice and talked her though problems both on the job and on a personal level, keeping them secret from the boys, although she wasn't sure how she could advise her if she told her about her growing feelings for the hitter. And she trusted Hardison to talk her out of a bad situation, especially if a plan had gone awry and she could confide in him about a lot of things but she didn't trust him as much as she trusted Eliot. No, she could trust Eliot with her life, knowing that he would always be there to catch her whenever she fell and Parker knew that when the tables where turned, it was the same for him. He'd said a few times, that they were the only ones to be able to make the hard calls, to do things that the others couldn't do even if it meant that it was unorthodox or selfish. She often wondered if this made them bad people, but the thoughts never lingered for long because Eliot's voice would ring in her head, telling her otherwise. They weren't selfish; they were strong and able to make the hardest of choices in order to benefit others.

Parker smiled broadly, basking in Eliot's seemingly happy glow and left him to his musings as she paced around again, knowing that he knew what she was doing and it wouldn't be long before he told her to knock it off. _'E.W,' _she thought silently, _'Emmeline W… Think Parker, Caleb Black and Emmeline White… Witter… Wittenberg. No, no, no. Emmeline Whitt… Whitting… Whittingstall!'_

Parker squealed loudly in excitement. That was it. Caleb Black and Emmeline Whittingstall had carved their names and their everlasting love in the tree and that made her happy beyond words. Happy because she knew no that the couple from her dreams had really been real and the resemblance to both she and Eliot was probably coincidental, her brain imprinting her own desires on to the characters in her dreams, although she had never seen Emmeline with her own eyes, her dreams always playing out via the young blonde woman's point of view. But they were real or at least had been once upon a time and she wasn't going crazy and now she only had to figure out why she had begun to dream about Angel Creek and the lovers before her trip had begun.

The blonde woman no longer had time to dwell on her thinking as she was shocked to see Eliot taking off across the meadow towards the trees at some speed leaving her behind. Something was wrong, very wrong and the way that he had left without a word could only have meant one thing. There was someone on the property that shouldn't have been and it didn't bode well. 'Eliot,' she called out after him slightly panicked but her voice may as well have been as quiet as a mouse's as he didn't hear her and disappeared into the trees. 'dammit Eliot!' And with her curse lost in the wind, she started out across the meadow in search of her friend.

**/**

His hand was on fire, the heat coursed through his veins and up his arm but yet he couldn't let go of the object clenched in his fist. He'd tried so many times but he couldn't move his fingers, he had no control of his muscles and his brain certainly wasn't helping him out by sending the correct neurological message. The burning sensation was getting stronger now, spreading over his entire body and he felt as though he needed to scream but again his body failed him and only he could hear himself screaming her name in his head. Oh God, how he was screaming for her, but he knew that she couldn't hear him and he was terrified. If this was going to be the end of him then he wished with every burning fibre of his being that death would hurry up and claim him for it would be a relief.

'_Parker,'_ his brain screamed once again, _'please help me.'_

Eliot's knees buckled and his upper body weight caused him to collapse to the ground. It took mere seconds to fall completely face down, as he slowly succumbed to darkness. The forest floor was soft and cool and he wanted nothing more but to roll around in the dirt to try and contain the fire within. Whatever poison was flowing through his veins was strong and although his body was completely paralysed his brain was still active and becoming hyper aware of everything going on around him, of the eerie silence and charged atmosphere. Aware of what was happening into him. He was Locked-In. He'd heard of Locked-In Syndrome, had taken out a few sick bastards who used the method as a way of torture to gain information from prisoners of war and had only seen the end results – a shell of a person who couldn't speak, move or breathe unaided – the only thing they could do was move their frightened and haunted eyes as a form of communication. A horrible existence that it seemed that he would be doomed to endure if death didn't come for him soon. He wanted to die. He wanted Parker to come charging through the trees, realise what was happening and put him out of his misery even if it did mean that she had to bash his brains in. She would do it; she had to and better her than Nate, Sophie or Hardison because they wouldn't have the guts to do it. They'd try to find a cure, keep him alive until they could bring him out, but it was useless there was no cure. No, cure. Only death.

'_Oh please, kill me now.'_

His brain felt as though it was on the verge of exploding when he finally slipped away into unconsciousness, his hand still clasped around the silver jewellery that had started the burning sensation in the first place and the voice of an angel ringing in his ears.

'_Caleb, there you are! Where have you been Caleb? I've been waiting for so long. I'm so glad you've come back to me.'_


	13. Chapter 11

**I know what you're all thinking... it's along the lines of 'Do my eyes deceive me? Is that really an update or do I need to get my eyes checked?' No, it really is an update.**

**I'd like to thank you for all being very patient. I've had a rough couple of months. June/July are pretty crappy months for me as the mark the months of my mothers passing and I'm not generally a very nice person to be around. I'm like swings and roundabouts - one minute I'm fine and the next I'm an uber bitch from hell. I spent these months listening to lots of Celine Dion (I do not recommend trying to sing along while sobbing and hiccupping at the same time - it's especially hazardous to ones health when combined with trying to skewer chicken) and then rocking out to Patsy Cline, Connie Francis and The Platters in homage to my mam. I did managed to write something new, for an old fandom but every time I tried to write this during this time, it didn't go as planned. Eliot died approx five times, Parker cut off Hardison's appendages and force fed him and I ultimately ended up with loads of drafts of this chapter. I've copied and pasted the best of the worse, re-wrote _a lot_ of it and now I've had to cut it in half because we (the Phantom Baby and I) were pushing almost 8000 word for this part alone. PB wasn't happy, but I placated it with lots of chocolate cake for the time being, so expect the next chapter within a couple of days. *Woooooo - I know, right.*  
**

**Anyhoo, this chapter and probably the next chapter too doesn't flow very well in my mind and is quite long winded but in the long and short of my ultimate goal for this, it's a necessary evil. This story is rated M/Ma for content and while I've tried to be respectful as though not to offend anyone, this chapter does mentions slavery and refers to freed slaves as coloured or black. If this offends you, then I'm sorry but I could have gone down the other route. Also, there is mention of a sexual taboo - it doesn't go into details but it is referenced. Also, I for the record, I know only about the Civil War that I've gleaned from t'internet nor do I know anything about witchcraft or Vodoun. **

**Gah - on with the show.**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

_The weather was unseasonably warm and many predicted that a storm was brewing, but Caleb Black didn't care much either way. He'd braved weathers of all kinds during his tenure in the War of Southern Independence, firstly as a private and then later as a Major in the Confederate Army during the war all the while wearing heavy woollen clothing and carrying heavy guns, a Haversack, rolled up bedding and other weapons. In the cool winters the uniform served its purpose and kept him warm unless it got wet during a rain storm and it stayed damp for days causing a constant coldness to set into his bones and in the summer the extra heat made his body itch like crazy and there was hardly ever any relief from the heat rash that plagued his body on occasion. These days, Caleb didn't mind the ever-changing weather systems that brought an abundance of sunshine, rain and the occasional snow storm because he was thankful that he had a second chance to live his life unlike so many of his friends and comrades who had lost their lives either on the bloody battlefields or from disease and infection. He didn't like to think back too much on the war and the atrocities that he had witnessed, for he found that thinking too much about the past and most importantly his past brought a strange melancholy that ailed him for days and he suffered with occasional night terrors so severe that his sister and some of the other working girls who lived above the saloon would have to restrain him until they passed. _

_Despite all of this, he still felt that, unlike many, his reasons for going of too war willingly were the right ones. He had wanted to sign up as soon as it word spread that the war had begun, but his parents had forbidden him, saying that a man of his status did not go off and fight another mans war. However, that was until the choice was taken away from all men and the conscription act was brought into force. William Black, Caleb's father had purchased higher ranks for both him and his older brother Alexander, much to the younger Black's dismay. Alexander had been overjoyed, knowing that he didn't have to do too much grunt work while Caleb had felt cheated of having to work his way up the ranks and the ability to prove himself much more capable than a rich fop who commanded respect rather than a man who earned it. The two brothers couldn't have been any more different than chalk and cheese. His brother and his father, along with many of their social circle were a small handful of people who felt that if the Union won the war then the slaves whom were employed by their father would been on an equal footing with the white folk. Caleb however had not. He wanted to fight for patriotism, for the rights to freedom for himself and future generations and also he wanted to fight because he wanted adventure. Instead, after a lot of harsh words between him and his father, he had left home in the dead of night and headed out of the Louisianan town where he had been born into privilege and status and headed into Texas where he signed up under an assumed name and worked his way up through the ranks to Major in just a few short years. His actions led his father to disown him, his mother to mourn him and his brother to hate him. Caroline was much too young to understand what was happening, though he had assured the girl, who was merely nine years of age at the time that he would return to see her. He also made that same promise to another, the woman he was betrothed to, but didn't realise at the time that you can't make that promise to more than one person at any one time. And at that time, he had pledged his allegiance to Confederate States of America. _

_Lost in his own thoughts, Caleb hadn't realised that he had left the sanctuary of Angel Creek behind him and had entered the large copse of trees beyond the wildflower filled meadow that marked the boundary of the small township. It was cooler beneath the shady canopy, although it was humid and smelt of damp, rotting vegetation it was also accompanied by the feeling that he was being watched by someone or something. There were natives around these parts, though they had never had any reason to harm any of the town's denizens, in fact he knew a few who often came to the edge of the tree line looking to trade their deer skins and meat for tobacco and gunpowder, so it wasn't unusual to feel such a thing, but this felt different, ominous even. The further into the trees he walked, the more the feeling of impending danger overtook his senses and he found himself cautiously looking around him as he doubled back on himself and headed back towards the direction that he came. _

_It was when he reached the old dirt wagon trail that was only a few metres from where the trees met the pasture it happened, he didn't see it coming, couldn't have as the attacker stuck like a coward from behind. His head exploded with a white hot burst of pain as he fell to his knees on the forest floor, his eyes fluttering briefly as he gave himself over to the blackness of unconsciousness. _

_**/**_

_He shook all over as he stepped back from the man on the ground, the rock in his hand covered with blood that dripped down his arm, cherry red against chocolate coloured skin. He felt sick to his stomach and dared not to think that he may have killed the man dressed in black, his legs buckled underneath his weight, he fell to his own knees just as his victim had, fighting the urge to retch and feeling tears burn at the corner of his eyes. With a soft thud the rock rolled from his grasp flinging a small spattering of blood onto the leaves beside him. Guilt washed over him and he could hold it in no longer as he quickly scrabbled on his feet towards the tree which he had been hiding behind only moments before and emptied the contents of his stomach – which wasn't much admittedly – at its base. When he was sure no more would come, he gingerly stood up, using the tree as leverage and wiped his mouth with his clean hand. Footsteps behind him alerted him of his mistress's presence and he was suddenly thankful that she hadn't witnessed his weak stomach for he knew that she would reprimand him and he would surely be punished for his indiscretion. _

'_You've done me a great service today Bill,' the woman's voice was cold and calculating, dangerous even and it sent shivers down the young man's spine. 'You will be rewarded greatly, despite loosing your breakfast. Now run along and bring your grandmother, she and I have work to do.'_

_Bill nodded and vanished into the trees in the direction of his mistress's wagon leaving the woman alone in the clearing with the unconscious man. _

'_Caleb, there you are! Where have you been Caleb, I've been waiting for so long. I'm so glad you've come back to me.' The woman crouched low next to the man on the ground, carefully, lovingly pushing a stray lock of his chestnut-coloured hair behind his ear. 'You've returned to me after all this time and we have much to discuss.'_

_While in her position, she turned her head and called out over her shoulder. 'I know you're there, show yourself you old crone.'_

'_O Kisa ou fè nou sòt timoun.(What have you done you stupid child)' the voice was gravelly yet knowledgeable and belonged to the woman whom the young boy had been sent to retrieve. There now stood two women in the clearing with the incapacitated Caleb Black. The second was a woman of many years, eighty at least with salt and pepper hair that despite being pulled back into a tight bun was wild looking. Lines on her face and hand showed years of hard work carrying out the bidding of the bidding of those who had once owned her and now those who employed her for more than her household duties. A Mambo Asogwe of high repute amongst her kind, a practitioner of Vodoun and a worshipper of Bondye, she was often called upon by the poor coloured men and women who were in need of strong magic to heal and called upon by the rich white women for matters of fertility and love. For her brethren she took no payment and for the rest, well if she didn't take money, she bargained with them to ensure that her extended family was taken care of and treated well now that many of the freed slaves had chosen to stay on with their households for a small fee. She was a proud and formidable woman who had suffered much heartache in her life. She had raised many of her own children and the young ones of the families of which she had been enslaved to over the years and felt that the white folk could at least grant her requests. Most of them did, but the ones that didn't. Well the Loa had their own ways of dealing with them. _

'_In English Martha.' the woman snapped as she got to her feet. _

'_I said,' Martha groused, 'what have you done. What have you gotten us all into?' _

'_I have done what needed to be done. Now stop your bellyachin' and get to what needs to be done.'_

_Martha sighed and strode purposely over to where Caleb lay on the forest floor. He looked a frightful sight with blood congealing at the back of his head and on the tanned skin of his neck and she wondered if the man whom her mistress was coddling truly was one of those who she had loved as a babe and had looked proudly upon as a young man. It was under duress that she had agreed to travel away from the home she had made after being made free long before the rest to aid the wicked woman beside her. It had long since been common knowledge that she had lost her mind after the war and the rejection of the youngest of the Black boys. _

'_You will clean his wound,' the elder commanded as she set to work drawing a circle around the man with a nearby stick, 'while I prepare the ceremony. Fetch my bag girl.' _

_Her mistress nodded and without argument hurried back towards the wagon hidden amongst the trees, returning shortly with Martha's bag, a grubby looking cloth and some rubbing alcohol. As the old woman began placing herbs, candles and charms around her makeshift alter the young woman set to work cleaning the wound until no traces of blood remained. When she was finished, she walked purposely away from the man ground and watched as her employee began to chant in Creole._

'_Mwen rele l__Atemis, Bondye fanm__yo bèl__, __Oshun__ak__Bondye__nan gwo__ak pwisan,__tande lapriyè__l '.__Nan__de flanm dife__, __boule__dezi__lontan__hébergée__ak yon__renmen__ki te yon fwa__fò,__louvri__kè__l 'yo__souvni__lanmou__vre ak__rankontre__yo__toujou__ak__pou tout tan.' she paused and reached down into her bag to retrieve a white dove which was contained in a small cage, hardly big enough for it to breath and a large ornately decorated athame. She pulled the bird out and grasped it in her hand to stop it squirming. It's cries of distress echoed around them and caused one or two loud squawks from the birds nesting in the trees. _

'

_Aksepte__sa a__sèvis ofrann bèt__nan__ak san epi ak__mare__nanm yo__jouk__lanmò.' Martha thrust the pin into the heart of the bird, killing it instantly and allowing its still pumping blood to flow freely. She moved her sacrifice to over a bowl and squeezed as much blood out of the dead animal as possible. She added more herbs and finished her chant. 'Ale__nan__lespri__lapè ak__beni__sa a__sendika yo.'_

'_Now what?' the watcher asked, wringing her hands. She hadn't expected the sacrifice and like Bill, the young man who had done her bidding in incapacitating Caleb, she felt her stomach churn and she fought the urge to retch. _

'_Now, I use the mixture to anoint you and then him. Come forward child and stand in the circle.'_

_Obligingly, she stepped into the circle and got down on her knees next to the priestess. Martha dipped her finger into the bowl, stirring the mixture vigorously before lifting her dripping digit and painting __Erzulie's veve – a heart with swirls and stars emerging on each side and a criss-cross pattern filling the inside of the heart, it was crude but it would do the trick – on the bare skin above her breasts.. '__Mwen__annoint__yo tou de__ak__senbòl la nan__Erzulie__ak__mèsi__move lespri yo__dèyè__rido a__pou operasyon__ko-__yo.'_

_The mistress sat back on her heels and watched as the old crone leant over Caleb's body, trusting that her spell would work so that they could leave this Godforsaken backwater of a town and be back on their way to Louisiana and their home. She watched intently as Martha un-tucked his black shirt and pushed it up to reveal the smooth tanned skin of his back. With her back to her, she couldn't see what she was doing now, but she assumed that she was daubing the same symbol on him that she had on her. _

'_Well woman,' she spat impatiently. 'Is the spell completed or not?' _

_The old Haitian woman was thankful that she had her back turned to the woman of whom she was now in employ of. For if she had been facing her, then she would have know immediately the answer was no, but the woman was able to sneak her hand inside her dress and to the small cloth pouch that she kept as close to her skin as possible to retrieve a silver ring encrusted with sapphires and emeralds attached to a fine silver chain, a special kind of gris-gris which she slipped beneath the waistband of the mans tight black pants, where it would not be discovered until after the departure of her and her mistress. _

'_No.! This man cannot be swayed by my magic. His soul has already been touched by a different kind of juju.' Martha moved backwards shocked at the power that she could still feel pulsing through her body. It was a power that she had never felt before in all her years of practising Voodoo and she had never heard of any other practitioner dealing with such strong forces – not even the great Marie Leveau, the great Voodoo Queen of New Orleans could contend with this power she was sure. She had merely touched her finger to the mans skin when a barrage of images raced through her mind and she knew immediately that the whole ritual had been a lost cause. _

'_What do you mean a different kind of juju?' she asked incredulously. She had barely believed in the old crone's abilities to cast her witchcraft as it was, only employing her based on the word of mouth from a companion of hers who swore that she had woven a spell her and helped her and her husband of a considerable age to have a child. She tried to keep her distance from many of the freed slaves as possible despite employing many at the plantation, and if she had had her way even old Martha would have been forcibly removed from the lands had her long passed owner William Black Sr. had not bequeathed her house and small portion of lands to her. _

_Martha did not move as she deliberated over her answer knowing that she could not explain it to the woman who hovered impatiently behind her. The intricate magicks that had been woven into the man's soul were ancient and unbreakable, being almost as old as time itself. __'Magic that you don't want to mess with. I don't even understand it; it's beyond what you and I know...' _

_The woman broke off and her entire body tensed something that didn't go amiss with her companion. There was a shift in the air and although she was the only who could feel a presence materialize behind the small group, she didn't make light of it, she doubted that the brunette woman would even be sensitive towards it any case but better safe than sorry. She would deal with it – a man, she mused, discreetly. She silently began to weave a quiet spell which would allow her to converse with the visitor without brining either of them undue attention._

'_I think you're a liar and charlatan. You voodoo hoodoo is nothin' more but a way to steal money of off the people who treated you with the little respect that you deserve. They should never have let any of you have your freedom. Go. I shall deal with him himself just as soon as he comes to.' the bloodied woman ranted wildly, 'And while I may not be able to punish you as you deserve, you can rest assured that you shall not be receivin' one cent payment from me and I might just have to make one or two of your family unemployable for the foreseeable future.' _

_**/**_

'_Caleb, please wake up my love.' Angelic and soft, the voice called out to him through the darkness and into the recess where his consciousness had taken its leave. _

_The words echoed through his mind as Caleb Black groaned into the loam of the forest floor and as felt as though he had spent three whole days drinking the Moonshine that Old Man Wickenby brewed in the tunnels under the town. His head ached and as his eyelids slowly fluttered open, his vision swam and a wave of dizziness washed over him making his stomach churn and causing him to gag slightly. If this had been caused by that blasted brew then he was not only going to prohibit his old friend from bringing it into the saloon he was also going to ensure that it was never brewed again and in future he would stick to liquor that he knew – whisky, rye and ale, lest he never wake up feeling like this again. Slowly and little by little, the dizziness and nausea began to pass and the black clad man was able to move a little easier and carefully and cautiously rolled himself onto his back, his long chestnut coloured hair fanning out behind him and his weakened arms falling limply beside him. As the back of his head touched the forest floor, he hissed in pain as an unknown knot at the base of his skull was discovered and he realised that he must have slipped and banged his head on a rock somewhere. _

_Rays of sunlight that filtered down through the boughs of the trees made him wince as they found his eyes and caused him to bring his hand up to his face to shield the brightness from his face – his head was pounding enough without the added effects from the sun. He made a mental note to seek out his sister and one of her famous hangover cures just as soon as he had the energy to get to his feet and return to town, but he wouldn't tell her about the bump on his head otherwise she'd be marching him over to visit Dr. Brendon whether he felt he needed it or not. The man stayed in that position for what felt like several hours, but was in reality only several minutes until a shadow fell across him, blocking out the sun completely. Caleb lowered his hand and opened his eyes fully, taking in the woman who stood over him._

_She was dressed from head to toe in black silk, from the black bodice that did subtle things to her cleavage, which strangely seemed to be tinted with red, to the heavily layered crinoline skirts that touched the floor. Her dress was positively out of place for Angel Creek, Caleb mused knowing that only very rarely did the woman in town wear such fine gowns, most opting for long skirts and blouses to go about their day to day business. The woman's raven-coloured hair was partially pinned up into a fancy up-do while the rest hung freely about her shoulders, framing her porcelain doll like features. Her violet eyes were shining at the sight of him and her smile was wide, although not quite reaching her eyes. Something in the back of his mind made him think the mourning clothing that his mother wore when his father died and he wondered if she was a younger incarnation of his mother come to mourn him because he surely felt as though he were dying. On closer inspection, the man realised that the woman who stood over him wasn't quite the stranger he had first thought. He knew her well in another life, a life when he was a different person._

'_It seems the years have been kind to you Caleb Black,' she smiled, 'you haven't changed a bit.'_

'_Hello Victoria.' Caleb said through gritted teeth. He didn't want to have to deal with her with his head on the verge of exploding all over the forest. 'It's been a long time.'_

'_Yes, it has. A decade at least, but who's countin'.' Victoria took a step backwards and gave the man on the ground leave to scuttle up from his position on the ground until he was sitting up properly with one leg stretched out and the other pulled close to his chest. _

_The woman wasn't that far off her timings. It had been almost a decade give or take a year or so since he had last laid eyes on her and it was a meeting that hadn't gone at all well. _

_Victoria St. Clair had moved in the same social circles as he and his family and their parents had thought them to be a good fit for marriage, his father had especially thought that she would be a good brood mare if nothing else, able and more than willing to carry on the family line and her family, the prestigious St. Clair's, had thought that marrying into the Black dynasty would give them a better social standing amongst their peers. At first, Caleb had balked at the idea, he abhorred the idea of being forced into a loveless marriage just to procure the family line and she had admitted one night that she felt the same. However, both knew that they had no other options and after both conceding to make the best of a bad situation, they had began courting, attending dances and balls together, taking long strolls and tea on the porch of the Black Plantation and after a few short months, Caleb had fallen for the young woman and she had fallen for him. It couldn't have worked out better than if Cupid himself had sent a love arrow in their direction – correct etiquette was followed and he travelled to visit Mr. St. Clair to ask for his daughter's hand. _

_With a wedding to plan and the matter of finding a home to live in afterwards, the matter of a war brewing between the North and South was of little interest to his bride to be who seemed more concerned with dress fittings and deciding how many of the family slaves their household would require. Caleb however was more astute and paid attention to the rumblings around him, the feeling of being hemmed in by ones situation growing every minute. Last minute nerves his father had soothed one night over brandy and cigars in the smoking room. Oh how eager he had been to run off for adventure when the war broke out and how thankfully he had been when his mother had eventually convinced his fiancée to post-pone the wedding until he returned from war. _

_It was a wedding that never came. The war had changed Caleb in many ways, made him reassess what he wanted in life. He didn't want to become his father and he didn't want to have the same mundane life that revolved around a cotton plantation that was stuck in the past. That was his brother, not him. He didn't even want to get married either. For awhile he did, until he saw how his life with Victoria would have been – endless society parties and having to put on airs and graces towards people who quite frankly hated. He'd seen so much death and destruction and he wanted more than the life he had. He wanted to travel, see and experience new things. He wanted to try living in California for a while, perhaps settle in Oregon, wanted to be a rogue with the ladies and break a few hearts. He came to realise that yes, he loved Victoria, but it wasn't enough for him and he didn't want to spend the rest of his life regretting the things that he could have done, but never did. _

_Perhaps it was the cowards way out, but he wrote Victoria a letter, explaining the reasons that he couldn't marry her, said that it was better to tell her now than to leave her waiting until he returned, give her the chance to find love with someone else, someone who deserved a woman like her. She did move on, married someone else. His brother Alexander. Word reached him that their father had bought him out of the army and he had returned home to take over the day to day management of the plantation. Caleb hadn't been surprised in the slightest, his brother wasn't someone who could be described as noble, he had always been as slippery as a snake and somewhat jealous of Caleb, despite him being the oldest of the two and generally getting the best of everything. So he and Victoria marrying was hardly the biggest of surprises – what did come as a surprise was that she had been his consort for many months before either of them had gone away and from what Caroline later professed it had been a shot gun wedding as the St. Clair's believed their beloved daughter to be with child. _

'_What are ya doin' here?' Caleb drawled lazily, trying to keep the hostility in his voice in check. 'Last I saw of you, you were tryin' to tell me that keepin' my sister under lock and key was the best thing for her so no one would know just how depraved my brother was.'_

'_Oh love, you're not still goin' on about that are you? ' The woman laughed for a moment her eyes sparkling with something that he couldn't quite figure out. 'It really would have been for the best, I mean carryin' a child like that…'_

_A child like that! The tone of Victoria's voice dripped with disdain at the mere mention of the unfortunate situation that his sister had found herself in. Caroline was only nine when he left Louisiana for Texas. She was as bright as she was beautiful and spent most of her days playing with the children born into slavery. The children were allowed to play together until the time when his mother or father deemed them old enough to start learning the ways of their parents, one such child was Phillip. He'd been a sickly sort of child whom Eleanor Black had taken an exceptional shine to; raising her like he was one of her own – within reason of course. It made sense that even as he entered the life of servitude before the abolition of slavery that he and his sister were close. After the laws had been passed, Caleb's father had offered a few of the free men and woman the opportunity to stay on as legitimate employees – after all many of them had been his childhood friends just as their children had become friends of the two brothers. Phillip, being fifteen at the time had consented and he, along with a few others were granted permission to live on the plantation while others were cast out and made to find their own accommodations. _

_Caroline, his sweet yet naïve sister had remained friendly with the boy and it seemed together they had discovered the trials and tribulations of puberty, discovering strange and new feelings. Friendship gave way to first love and eventually found the two youngsters spending just one night together, but it was all that it took and the result was an accidental and unwanted pregnancy. William Black and his wife Eleanor had passed away from Scarlett Fever just twelve months before, leaving Caroline in the care of Alexander and Victoria. It was an accident that would have cause scandal amongst their peers and so the husband and wife plotted together to keep the girl hidden away until such a time that the babe was born and then they would dispose of it. They hadn't counted the war ending and the eventual return of the prodigal brother. _

_Caleb had been shocked to find not only that his parents had died without word being sent to him and also to find that Victoria had married his brother.. Even worse, Alexander seemed to have gone slightly mad in the years following his return to war. Victoria spoke of an old head injury that plagued him often, causing him melancholy and bouts of mania. She didn't seem at all too concerned about his wellbeing and instead tried to win his affections. These actions however were not as bad as the disgust that washed over him when he realised that they were keeping his sister captive and that they threatened to turn murderer. Phillip had already being severly punished for 'forcing himself upon a lady of status' and whipped within an inch of his life by his brother. Caleb had suspected that much more had happened than just the whipping, but no one dared speak of it, even his sister had tried to keep tight lipped until one morning when the whole sad story came pouring out. _

_He had crept down to the cellar where his sister was being kept in the middle of the night. He hadn't been able to sleep between the noise that was emanating from his brother and sister-in-laws quarters and the soft sobs that echoed throughout the house from Caroline. She had been surprised to see him, she hadn't even known that he had returned only hours earlier yet her pleasure at his visit was clear. They held each other for what felt hours, until her sobs quieted to soft sighs and she was able talk without tears. The past four years had been hard on the poor child, the loss of her parents had caused her to seek comfort from someone other than her family which of course had resulted in the child which had grown steadily in her belly for the past five months. She would give birth in the Spring and she felt sure that she carried a boy, having testing a theory that she had once heard one of the slave girls talk about – it involved using a pendant and deciphering the way that swung. She explained that she hadn't seen Phillip since it was discovered that she was carrying his child and feared that Alexander had done irrevocable damage and she also, with much trepidation explained that since the first night that she had been brought down here, her older brother, the boy she had followed around like a lost puppy had been paying her nightly visits to lay with her as if she were his wife. _

_Caleb emptied the contents of his stomach, then and there before giving the girl his vow that they would be leaving the place that had once been their home before the week was out. True to his word, he spend every night since that first in the company of his sister, watching her sleep, protecting her as his brother should have done and in the still of the night, by the cover of the full moon and with the help of Martha and one of her daughters, they left the Black Plantation for good. _

_They joined a wagon train bound for California with very little money and very few belongings and found that the kindness of strangers was astounding. Even when Caroline's baby came the following spring and was indeed a sleeping child of colour, not one of them looked down upon her seeing a harlot or similar, instead they could see a grieving mother who had lost a child and they helped her as best as they could. The baby, whom Caroline had named Benjamin after Phillip's father was buried in Texas and the brother and sister left the wagon train a few short months later when the trail they were on neared the border of the Oklahoma Territories. The arrived in Angel Creek in the fall and they had never looked back. _

'_That child, madam was worth more than you or my brother was ever worth.' Caleb spat at the woman, wondering if he would have to endure her presence for much longer. 'Once again I ask you, why are ya$ here?'_

'_I come to bring you the news of your brothers passin'. He passed last winter from a strange condition that the doctors could not treat.' There was a strange light in the woman's eyes as she spoke of his brother. 'Your father's will stated that should we bear no children that everythin' passes on to you. The plantation, the cotton fields, the subsequent townhouses that your father purchased to give his children as wedding gifts – they all belong to you now.' _

_Caleb said nothing, mulling over what his ex-fiancée had just told him and briefly said a silent prayer for his brother. Just because he hated him in the end, it didn't mean that he didn't still love him, there was after all a fine line between love and hate. _

'_As do I.' Victoria added as an after thought._

'_My condolences on the passin' of your husband,' he said finally pushing himself to his feet and conquering the dizziness that had hampered him earlier. 'But you don't belon' to me and you ain't for a long time now darlin'._

'_We could work around that perhaps,' Victoria smirked the way that a snake would try to hypnotise its prey. 'We were good together once, could have had a wonderful life had things been different. We still could have all those things we dreamt about. We could start a family.'_

'_You're right darlin' we were good together, right up until you decided to share my brother's bed.' Caleb growled, his blue eyes darkening with an overload of pent up anger and emotion. 'You betrayed me, if I hadn't broken our engagement and we had wed as planned, I suspect you would have still have been sharin' his bed to this very day.' _

'_Alexander was a mistake, love.' the woman sighed and pushed a loose strand of her hair away from her eyes. 'I was young and you were pulling away from me lon' before the war conscription started. He was just there. But I never loved him, it was always you Caleb. It will always be you.'_

'_Listen and listen good Victoria. I don't want you, I don't love you and I don't want anythin' to do with the estate. It's yours, do what you want with it. Caroline and I, we have a home here.' _

_Violet eyes darkened turning to a stormy dark grey and the pretty facial features that the woman prided herself on distorted into something demonic and unnatural looking. It lasted only a few seconds but it was long enough for Caleb to know that the woman before him was unstable as his brother had been._

'_You'd rather stay in this pissant town with your whorehouse than return to your home?' demanded the woman, she may have even stomped her foot hard against the ground, but Caleb didn't notice. 'you're besmirchin' your family name Caleb Black.'_

'_There is more to this pissant town than you think.' Caleb turned on his heel and began to walk in the direction of the meadow, hoping against all hope that the woman wouldn't follow. He was wrong; she quickly caught up to him._

'_Ah you mean the chit of a girl that you're dallyin' with. How old is she? Fifteen? Sixteen, seventeen maybe? Why isn't that as almost as young as sweet little Caroline was when she laid down with that boy. I bet she even loved it when her own brother took his pleasure in her night after night. Tell me love, have you had the pleasure of your sister yet? Alexander used to be insatiable afterwards and he tasted of her, oh how sweet she tasted on his cock.' _

_Caleb had never laid a hand on a woman in anger in his life, yet Victoria's words brought about an urge that he had never felt in his life and before he could stop himself he turned to face and her let his hand connect with her cheek. She staggered back in shock, her own hand flying to her face to cup the redness that had already flared on her creamy skin. He knew he'd hit her hard enough that she would be marked for days and he felt no guilt at the thought. It was less that she deserved for speaking out of turn and spewing poison about his sister and Emmeline. Now that he thought on it, how did she know so much about the life he had in Angel Creek? How long had she been seeking him out, did she have spies in town?_

'_I see I hit a nerve love.' The brunette laughed and then spat out a mouthful of blood, the impact of his hand had split her lip. 'Pity, I thought we were finally getting' somewhere.'_

'_That was a warnin' you evil piece of filth, leave this place and never return. Keep the plantation it's yours. But I will never return to Louisiana nor will I ever return to you.' _

'_Oh really Caleb, don't be so dramatic. You have no idea what I'm capable of. Alexander underestimated me and look where that got him. Do you really think that your little love affair with that girl will go unnoticed forever? I'm sure her father would very much love to know that his precious daughter has been deflowered by the man who he owes debts to, that she sneaks out every night under the cover of darkness to spend the night with you. I could make life very difficult for you both. However…' _

'_Whatever your terms are, I ain't interested.' Caleb grabbed her by the arms and shook her somewhat violently. 'There ain't nothin' ya can say or do to me or to the girl.' He released her and turned away, this time walking further and further out of the copse until he was halfway into the meadow and on his way back to town, rueing the day that he had ever met her. _

_**/**_

_Victoria watched him leave, her heart sinking and her eyes welling up with salty tears. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. If only Martha hadn't been so useless and she had cast her spell correctly, she could have avoided the confrontation with her former fiancée. As it was, she had now given him reason to hate her even more, especially as she had been so vocal and said things that she hadn't meant to say. These failures now meant that she to make amends with him if they were to have any kind of future, and from what she'd seen of Angel Creek, it was a pleasant enough town. She could muddy the waters a little and still return home before the years end. Perhaps, she mused she would become acquainted with Mr. Whittingstall as she had suggested to Caleb, ensure that the dalliance with the girl and he was severed indefinitely. Oh what fun she was going to have winning the man she loved back and destroying those who stood in her way. Caleb had been hers from the very beginning and nothing was ever going to change that, not then, not now, not ever. _

Translation of Martha's chant c/o English to French Creole translator found online:

_I call upon the Beautiful Goddess, Oshun and the great and powerful Bondye, hear her prayer. Within flames of fire, burns long harboured desire and a love that was once strong, open his heart to true loves memories and reunite them always and forever. _

_Accept this sacrifice of blood and bind their souls until death. _

_Go in peace spirits and bless this union._

_I annoint them both with the symbol of Erzulie and thank the spirits behind the veil for their co-operation._


End file.
